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S:i)e  Colljcr  lectttrcs 

PUBLISHED    BY 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 


MEDICAL  RESEARCH  AND  HUMAN  PROGRESS, 
By  W.  W.  Keen.      1917. 

THE  RESPONSIBLE  STATE.     A  Reexamination  of 

Fundamental  Political  Doctrines  in  the  Light  of 
World  War  and  the  Menace  of  Anarchism.  By 
Franklin  Henry  Giddings.     1918. 

DEMOCRACY:   DISCIPLINE;   PEACE.    By  William 
Roscoe  Thayer.      1919. 


THE  COLVER  LECTURES 

IN  BROWN  UNIVERSITY 

1919 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

By 
William  Roscoe  Thayer 


®roi»tt  UniJ?er0it^.   ^§t  Cofuet  ^utuvta,  1919 


DEMOCRACY: 
DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

BY 
WILLIAM  ROSCOE  THAYER 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

^be  Stitecjjibe  pxt^^  CambciDge 
1919 


COPYRIGHT,   I919,   BY  WILLIAM  ROSCOE  THAYER 
ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED 


In  Memory  of 
THEODORE  ROOSEVELT 

Who  gave  his  Country 

the  Supreme  Gift  Possible 

to  a  Patriot  in  a  Democracy 

COURAGE 


THE  Colver  lectureship  is  provided  by  a  fund  of 
$10,000  presented  to  the  University  by  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Jesse  L.  Rosenberger  of  Chicago  in  memory  of 
Mrs.  Rosenberger's  father,  Charles  K.  Colver  of  the 
class  of  1842.  The  following  sentences  from  the  letter 
accompanying  the  gift  explain  the  purposes  of  the  foun- 
dation: — 

*'It  is  desired  that,  so  far  as  possible,  for  these  lectures 
only  subjects  of  particular  importance  and  lecturers  emi- 
nent in  scholarship  or  of  other  marked  qualifications  shall 
be  chosen.  It  is  desired  that  the  lectures  shall  be  dis- 
tinctive and  valuable  contributions  to  human  knowledge, 
known  for  their  quality  rather  than  their  number.  In- 
come, or  portions  of  income,  not  used  for  lectures  may 
be  used  for  the  publication  of  any  of  the  lectures  deemed 
desirable  to  be  so  published." 

Charles  Kendrick  Colver  (1821-1896)  was  a  graduate 
of  Brown  University  of  the  class  of  1842.  The  necrologist 
of  the  University  wrote  of  him:  "He  was  distinguished 
for  his  broad  and  accurate  scholarship,  his  unswerving 
personal  integrity,  championship  of  truth,  and  obedience 
to  God  in  his  daily  life.  He  was  severely  simple  and  un- 
worldly in  character." 

The  lectures  already  published  in  this  series  are:  — 

1916 

The  American  Conception  of  Liberty  and  Government,  by 
Frank  Johnson  Goodnow,  LL.D.,  President  of  Johns 
Hopkins  University.  In  boards,  63  pages;  price,  50 
cents. 

1917 

Medical  Research  and  Human  Welfare,  by  W.  W.  Keen, 
M.D.,  LL.D.  (Brown),  Emeritus  Professor  of  Sur- 
gery,  Jefferson  Medical  College,  Philadelphia.  In 
cloth,  160  pages;  price,  $1.25. 


1918 

The  Responsible  State:  A  Reexamination  of  Fundamental 
Political  Doctrines  in  the  Light  of  World  War  and  the 
Menace  of  Anarchism,  by  Franklin  Henry  Giddings, 
LL.D.,  Professor  of  Sociology  and  the  History  of 
Civilization  in  Columbia  University;  sometime  Pro- 
fessor of  Political  Science  in  Bryn  Mawr  College. 
In  cloth,  108  pages;  price,  $1.00. 


CONTENTS 

I.  Democracy 1 

II.  Discipline 42 

III.  Peace 79 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE: 
PEACE 


DEMOCRACY 

Democracy  is  on  trial,  as  it  has  been  ever 
since  the  first  Democrats,  entranced  by  a 
vision  of  perfection,  attempted  to  embody 
their  vision  in  a  working  system  of  govern- 
ment. To  the  cynic,  and  the  every-day 
practical  man,  no  other  system  is  so  ridic- 
ulous. It  wears  its  defects  on  its  front.  Its 
failures  strew  the  centuries.  It  seems  to  fly 
in  the  face  of  experience.  And  yet,  to  the 
eye  of  hope,  it  shines  with  an  irresistible 
radiance,  before  which  all  other  systems 
look  dim  and  sordid,  hideous  and  mean. 

The  divine  fact  at  the  heart  of  Democ- 
racy is  Freedom.  The  desire  for  Freedom, 
born  into  every  human  being  at  his  birth, 
accompanies  him  until  his  death.  When 
we  least  suspect,  it  underlies  our  motives. 
1 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

When  we  are  most  free,  that  state  seems 
so  natural  that  we  take  hardly  more  notice 
of  it  than  of  health  when  we  are  well :  but 
in  proportion  as  we  lack  freedom,  we 
yearn  for  it.  Deprivation  measures  its 
value.  Every  one,  from  human  clod  to 
king,  knows  this  desire  in  some  of  its  many 
forms.  The  exile,  eating  out  his  heart 
among  strangers,  longs  to  be  free  to  return 
to  his  own  people.  The  sinner  prays  to  be 
uncoiled  from  his  sin.  The  sick  bless  the 
medicine  or  the  surgeon's  knife  that  frees 
them  from  their  pain.  The  destitute  and 
downtrodden,  outcasts  under  every  dis- 
pensation, —  our  brothers  and  sisters, 
though  we  deny  them  kinship,  —  whose 
existence  seems  unrelieved  misery,  have, 
nevertheless,  a  groping  instinct  for  free- 
dom. Grief,  sorrow,  remorse,  agony  weigh 
the  more  heavily  because  their  victims 
despair  of  seeing  the  burden  lifted:  yet 
they  too  await  one  liberator  —  Death. 

Not  only,  however,  does  its  negation 
testify  to  the  universal  human  craving  for 
freedom,    its    possession    gives    stronger 


DEMOCRACY 

proof.  The  master  artist  seems  free  to  deal 
as  he  pleases  with  color  or  form,  with 
words  or  sound.  We  call  it  wizardry,  in- 
spiration, genius.  But  the  artist  himself, 
in  the  very  climax  of  his  most  joyous 
achievement,  feels  not  quite  free  —  the 
last  touch  of  perfection  eludes  him  —  he 
perceives  a  better  beyond  his  best.  So,  too, 
the  man  of  affairs,  managing  men  and  in- 
dustries as  confidently  as  a  general  de- 
ploys his  forces,  goes  on  broadening  his 
range,  but  always  realizing  that,  although 
he  has  liberty  to  accomplish  so  much,  he 
would  need  more  and  more  strength  to  do 
all  he  dreams.  The  joy  of  work  comes 
when  the  worker  has  free  play  for  his  tal- 
ent, skill,  or  faculties.  Neither  obstacle 
nor  baffling  counts  against  him,  so  long  as 
he  feels  the  stimulus  of  healthy  activity. 
Only  where  there  is  no  horizon  does  the 
joy  fade  out  of  work:  for  the  horizon  sug- 
gests liberty. 

Even  the  passion  for  money-making, 
until  it  degenerates  into  a  perverted  ava- 
rice amassing  riches  for  their  own  sake,  is 
3 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

rooted  in  a  wholesome  desire  for  Power 
which  the  owner  can  transmute  into  inde- 
pendence, that  is,  Freedom. 

But  Liberty  has  a  higher  purpose  than 
ministering  to  our  desires  and  our  pleas- 
ures; higher  even  than  releasing  us  from 
pain;  higher  than  bringing  solace  to  our 
griefs  and  forgiveness  to  our  sins.  Liberty 
is  the  condition  which  makes  us  moral 
agents.  The  freedom  of  the  will  is  the  no- 
blest of  Man's  assumptions.  Without  it,  he 
would  remain  an  animal,  devoid  of  con- 
science, blind  to  the  sense  of  right  and 
wrong  in  dealing  with  his  fellows,  unaware 
of  any  moral  relation  between  himself  and 
the  Infinite. 

Philosophers  may  never  be  able  to  solve 
the  mystery  by  which  Man,  every  atom 
of  whose  material  body  is  subject  to  laws 
which  he  cannot  control,  enjoys,  neverthe- 
less, in  the  practical  conduct  of  his  life, 
freedom  of  choice  between  good  and  evil: 
but  so  it  is.  In  proportion  as  we  are  moral 
we  are  free.  Indeed,  we  may  look  at  hu- 
man life,  from  the  lowest  savage  to  the 
4 


DEMOCRACY 

highest  civilized  type,  as  the  manifesta- 
tion on  an  ascending  scale  of  the  penetra- 
tion of  matter  by  spirit.  In  all  religions, 
absolute  Freedom  —  omnipotence  —  is  at- 
tributed to  the  Deity:  so  Freedom  is  the 
condition  in  which  alone  Man  can  attain 
his  highest  development  here. 

I  press  these  old  truths  upon  you,  be- 
cause we  live  at  a  time  when  the  enemies 
of  Freedom  would  have  us  believe  that 
Democracy  is  a  worn-out  experiment,  a 
folly  which  the  forward  nations  have  in- 
dulged under  the  spell  of  an  iridescent 
but  fatuous  illusion.  Democracy  cannot 
be  so  dismissed.  It  is  an  integral  part  of 
that  universal  impulse  towards  Freedom 
to  which  history  bears  witness.  You  can- 
not demand  Freedom  of  worship  and  of 
speech,  Freedom  to  love  and  to  work  and 
to  trade,  and  then  deny  political  Freedom. 
The  same  sap  runs  through  .every  branch 
and  twig  of  the  Tree  of  Life;  wherever 
you  exclude  it,  the  branch  will  wither  and 
die. 

5 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

Unless  we  are  prepared  to  hold,  there- 
fore, that  mankind  has  touched  its  zenith 
and  must  henceforth  descend  into  the  bar- 
barism from  which  it  emerged,  we  shall 
put  our  faith  in  Democracy,  as  the  method 
by  which,  in  the  political  field,  the  race 
may  mount  to  higher  levels.  If  we  give  up 
Democracy,  we  renounce  that  Spirit  of 
Freedom  planted  in  us  with  roots  which 
go  down  to  the  very  deeps  of  our  human 
nature,  and  is  almost  as  necessary  as  is 
the  instinct  of  self-preservation.  Hitherto, 
no  tyrant,  were  he  King  or  Kaiser  or 
Anarch,  has  succeeded  in  destroying  this 
spirit.  The  exile  has  preached  it  in  his 
banishment;  the  prisoner  has  uttered  it 
for  the  invisible  winds  to  spread  from  his 
dungeon ;  its  martyrs  have  been  burned  at 
the  stake,  and  lo!  from  their  ashes  that 
spirit  has  passed  unhindered  into  other 
lands  and  has  entered  other  times  with  a 
liberator's  invincible  progress. 

What  we  distrust  is  not  Democracy,  but 
its  very  imperfect  counterpart.  One  does 
not  need  to  be  a  Bismarck  in  order  to 
6 


DEMOCRACY 

satirize  its  failures,  absurdities,  inconsist- 
encies, and  ills:  any  fool  can  do  that.  The 
wise  man,  who  is  also  the  just  man,  in- 
quires in  each  case  the  conditions  under 
which  the  Democratic  experiment  is  made, 
and  he  remembers  that  the  medium 
through  which  every  system  works,  for 
better,  for  worse,  is  our  finite  human  na- 
ture. In  being  worked  out  a  theoretically 
perfect  system  cannot  escape  the  defects 
of  humanity. 

Opposed  to  Democracy  stands  Despot- 
ism, which  has  many  varieties,  from  the 
privilege,  disguised  or  open,  of  a  certain 
class,  to  the  absolute  authority  of  a  tyrant. 
It  rests,  primarily,  on  brute  force  and 
assumes  —  an  assumption  which  Richard 
Rumbold  denied  on  the  scaffold  —  that 
nine  tenths  of  the  race  are  born  with  bits 
in  their  mouths  and  saddles  on  their  backs, 
and  that  the  other  tenth  come  into  the 
world  booted  and  spurred  to  ride  them. 

In  one  way  or  another  the  Despot  draws 
the  majority  of  brute  force  to  his  side,  and 
thenceforth  his  control  is  comparatively 
7 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

easy  until  a  stronger  than  he  arises  and 
wrests  his  power  from  him.  By  self-inter- 
est, he  attaches  one  class  to  his  fortunes; 
by  oppression,  another;  by  terror,  a  third. 
He  finds  it  easy  to  dupe  the  credulous  by 
claiming  to  reign  by  divine  right  —  a 
claim  which,  whatever  its  sedative  value 
in  earlier  ages,  cannot  be  treated  seriously 
in  our  modern  time,  when  we  know  the  dia- 
bolical methods  by  which  dynasties  have 
been  established. 

I  do  not  propose,  of  course,  to  sketch 
the  varieties  of  Despotism.  They  range 
from  the  atrocious  regime  of  ancient  ty- 
rants like  Dionysius  and  Nero  to  the  en- 
lightened rule  of  Marcus  Aurelius  and 
Leopold  II.  Their  common  characteristic 
is  that  the  direction  of  the  affairs  of  state 
springs  from  and  is  governed  by  a  single 
will,  even  when  that  will  belongs  to  a 
madman.  This  singleness  of  direction  has 
always  given  to  Despotism  a  great  ad- 
vantage in  dealing  with  foreign  enemies. 
The  tyrant  commands;  his  subjects  obey: 
there  is  neither  debate  nor  divided  coun- 
8 


DEMOCRACY 

sel.  His  policy  may  be  wrong,  but  those 
who  carry  it  out  for  him  need  not  hesitate, 
for  they  have  his  sanction. 

Despotism,  you  perceive,  is,  relatively 
speaking,  a  low  form  of  government.  The 
essentials  were  well  understood  and  ably 
carried  out  by  Rameses  II  in  Egypt  thirty- 
three  hundred  years  ago.  We  allow  our- 
selves to  be  deceived  by  the  obvious 
superiority  of  modern  invention  in  ena- 
bling Despotism  to  use  its  tools  with  clock- 
like precision  in  war  and  peace:  for  no 
German  achievement  in  the  recent  Atro- 
cious War  equals  that  of  Napoleon  in 
marching  an  army  of  half  a  million  men 
into  Russia  in  1812.  Napoleon's  army 
went  on  foot,  and  horses  and  oxen  dragged 
its  stores  and  cannon  along  with  it. 
The  German  hosts  and  their  equipment 
rushed  by  railway  or  in  motor  cars,  cam- 
ions, and  lorries.  Nor  has  any  German 
edifice,  even  with  the  aid  of  the  latest 
machinery,  matched  in  magnitude  or  in 
difficulty  of  construction  the  monuments 
which  the  Pharaohs  raised  by  human  labor. 
9 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

Despotism,  we  infer,  being  a  lower  sys- 
tem, has  already  been  developed  to  its 
maximum  according  to  the  material  re- 
sources on  which  depend,  in  a  definite 
measure,  the  social  conditions  of  different 
epochs.  But  Democracy  has  rarely  had  a 
fair  field.  The  Greek  Republics  stood  on 
too  small  a  base,  and  besides  they  ac- 
cepted Slavery  as  a  necessary  element. 
The  Roman  State,  even  under  its  Repub- 
lican dispensation,  differed  too  widely 
from  our  ideal  of  Democracy  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  model  for  us:  its  supreme  re- 
sults were  not  Democratic  but  Imperial. 
Once,  and  once  only,  has  Oligarchy  come 
nearer  to  attaining  that  perfection  which 
each  form  of  civilized  government  aims  at. 
The  Venetians  contrived  a  system  which 
fitted  their  peculiar  needs  as  a  glove  fits 
the  hand  —  a  system  delicate  and  elastic, 
but  as  firm  as  a  web  of  steel  —  thanks  to 
which  Venice  not  only  floated  triumphant 
for  twelve  centuries  on  the  Lagoons,  but 
held  the  gorgeous  East  in  fee,  and  dur- 
ing half  a  millennium  controlled  the  com- 
10 


DEMOCRACY 

-merce  of  Western  Europe  with  the  Levant. 
Were  duration,  or  perfect  adjustment  of 
means  to  ends,  were  prosperity,  or  the 
welfare  and  happiness  of  the  governed, 
the  test  of  government,  then  surely  Oli- 
garchy, as  it  flourished  in  Venice,  would 
stand  incomparably  first.  But  as  there  has 
been  only  one  Venice,  so  her  methods, 
could  they  possibly  be  revived,  would 
suit  no  modern  State.  Nor  would  the 
methods  of  a  Theocracy  like  that  of  Cal- 
vin at  Geneva  or  that  of  the  Puritans  in 
Massachusetts.  Such  examples  belong  to 
highly  individualized  groups,  under  very 
unusual  conditions,  and  they  presuppose 
a  community  which  is  homogeneous  in 
race  and  ideals,  and  sparse  in  population. 
The  great  modern  Democracies  —  Brit- 
ain and  the  United  States  —  are  filled,  on 
the  contrary,  with  multitudes  differing 
widely  in  origin  and  traditions.  The  High- 
lander has  as  little  in  common  with  the 
Cornishman  as  the  Welshman  has  with 
the  East  Anglian:  and  the  constituents  of 
our  American  population  have  become  as 
11 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

polyglot  as  were  those  of  Rome  at  the 
height  of  the  Empire.  The  importance  of 
this  diversity  cannot  be  exaggerated:  in 
the  United  States  it  has  seriously  hindered 
the  orderly  working  of  Democracy,  and  it 
stands  today  the  chief  menace  to  the  at- 
tainment of  that  sense  of  common  inter- 
ests and  ideals  without  which  no  form  of 
government  can  reach  its  highest  expres- 
sion. 

Before  we  condemn  Democracy  —  as  it 
is  now  too  much  the  fashion  to  do  —  we 
should  see  whether  the  shortcomings 
charged  against  it  here  during  the  past 
generation  really  sprang  from  Democracy, 
or  from  conditions  which,  if  they  had 
obtained  in  other  countries  governed  by 
other  rules,  would  have  caused  similar  re- 
sults. Medicines,  in  the  hands  of  a  trained 
physician,  cure.  If  children  get  hold  of 
them  and  poison  themselves  or  others, 
you  must  not  accuse  the  medicine. 

The  objections  to  Democracy  were 
raised  almost  since  the  earliest  attempt  to 
set  up  a  Democratic  experiment.  From 
12 


DEMOCRACY 

Plato  down,  how  many  great,  sober,  far- 
seeing,  and  enlarged  minds  have  pointed 
out  its  obvious  defects!  "When  a  Democ- 
racy," says  Plato,  "which  is  thirsting  for 
freedom  has  evil  cup-bearers  presiding 
over  the  feast,  and  has  drunk  too  deeply, 
of  the  strong  wine  of  freedom,  then,  unless 
her  rulers  are  very  amenable  and  give 
plentiful  draught,  she  calls  them  to  ac- 
count and  punishes  them,  and  says  that 
they  are  cursed  oligarchs.  .  .  .  Loyal  citi- 
zens are  insulted  by  her  as  lovers  of  slav- 
ery and  men  of  naught;  she  would  have 
subjects  who  are  like  rulers,  and  rulers 
who  are  like  subjects :  these  are  men  after 
her  own  heart,  whom  she  praises  and  hon- 
ors both  in  public  and  private.  Now  in 
such  a  State,  can  liberty  have  any  limit? 
Certainly  not.  By  degrees  the  anarchy 
finds  its  way  into  private  houses  and  ends 
by  getting  among  the  animals  and  infect- 
ing them.  .  .  .  The  father  gets  accustomed 
to  descend  to  the  level  of  his  sons  and  to 
fear  them,  and  the  son  to  be  on  a  level 
with  his  father,  he  having  no  shame  or  fear 
13 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

of  either  of  his  parents;  and  this  is  his  free- 
dom, and  the  metic  is  equal  with  the  citi- 
zen and  the  citizen  with  the  metic  and  the 
stranger  on  a  level  with  either.  .  .  .  There 
are  other  slight  evils :  .  .  .  the  master  fears 
and  flatters  his  scholars,  and  the  scholars 
despise  their  masters  and  tutors;  and,  in 
general,  young  and  old  are  alike,  and  the 
young  man  is  on  a  level  with  the  old,  and 
is  ready  to  compete  with  him  in  word  or 
deed;  and  old  men  condescend  to  the 
young,  and  are  full  of  pleasantry  and 
gaiety;  they  do  not  like  to  be  thought 
morose  and  authoritative,  and  therefore 
they  adopt  the  manners  of  the  young.  .  .  . 

"For  the  excess  of  liberty,  whether  in 
States  or  individuals,  seems  only  to  pass 
into  excess  of  slavery.  .  .  .  Tyranny  natu- 
rally arises  out  of  democracy,  and  a  most 
aggravated  form  of  tyranny  and  slavery 
out  of  the  most  extreme  form  of  liberty."  ^ 

This  is  not  all  that  the  starry-eyed  Plato 
has  to  say  about  Democracy,  but  it  fairly 

*  Plato :  Republic,  Book  viii,  562-64.  (Jowett's  trans., 
2d  ed.,  Oxford.)  . 

14 


DEMOCRACY 

epitomizes  his  verdict  on  it.  He  believed  in 
Aristocracy. 

So  did  the  other  great  Greek,  Aristotle, 
who  also  had  the  power  of  looking  into  the 
very  essences  of  things  and  into  the  seeds 
of  time.  He  regarded  Democracy  as  a  de- 
generation from  a  better  form  of  govern- 
ment. He,  too,  saw  how  easily  Democracy 
turns  corrupt  and  becomes  tyranny.  The 
most  favorable  conditions  for  a  Democ- 
racy, he  said,  would  exist  in  a  pastoral 
state;  for  shepherds  and  husbandmen  are 
so  busy  with  their  herds  and  crops  that 
they  have  little  time  to  devote  to  politics. 
Without  cities  or  large  towns  they  have 
no  places  of  resort  to  take  their  attention 
away  from  their  chief  concerns,  which  are 
agricultural.  They  assemble  at  rare  inter- 
vals in  their  villages  and  decide  what  rules 
or  laws  to  pass  for  the  common  good.  Ad- 
ministration costs  little  or  nothing,  be- 
cause each  husbandman  gives  his  service 
gratis  and  the  collective  needs,  for  which 
money  or  its  equivalent  must  be  raised, 
are  few. 

15 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

Such  a  social  state,  you  will  see,  differs 
entirely  from  Democracy  adapted  to  cities 
—  especially  to  our  modern  large  cities  — 
or  even  to  farming  regions  of  wide  extent 
and  having  in  the  aggregate  a  considerable 
population.  You  can  walk,  between  break- 
fast and  luncheon,  from  one  end  to  the 
other  of  some  of  the  smaller  rural  States  of 
Hellas.  Inevitably,  therefore,  the  form  of 
government  which  would  suit  them  would 
not  serve  for  our  Prairie  States  or  for  the 
amplitude  of  Texas.  When  Aristotle  refers 
to  the  most  nearly  perfect  kind  of  Democ- 
racy, he  means,  like  Plato,  the  kind  that 
husbandmen  or  shepherds  would  devise 
and  operate,  and  he  implies  that  other 
democracies  start  on  a  lower  plane  and 
become  most  easily  perverted.  "An  aris- 
tocracy seems  most  likely  to  confer  the 
honors  of  the  State  on  the  virtuous,  for 
virtue  is  the  object  of  an  aristocracy, 
riches  of  an  oligarchy,  and  liberty  of  a 
democracy."  ^  In  many  places  he  insists 
on  equality  as  the  vital  element  in  Democ- 
^  Aristotle:  Politics,  Book  rv,  chap.  vm. 
16 


DEMOCRACY 

racy,  and  from  this  it  follows  that,  "the 
rich  should  have  no  more  share  in  the  gov- 
ernment than  the  poor,  nor  be  alone  in 
power;  but  that  all  should  be  equal,  ac- 
cording to  number;  for  thus,  they  think, 
equality  and  liberty  of  the  State  best 
preserved."  ^ 

Aristotle,  the  most  practical  of  men, 
analyzes  the  four  varieties  of  Democracy 
from  the  most  "ancient"  and  perfect,  that 
of  the  husbandmen,  in  a  descending  scale, 
and  he  draws  up  the  rules  by  which  each 
can  be  most  wisely  maintained.  One  feels, 
however,  that  he  analyzes  forms  of  a  dis- 
ease rather  than  ideals  of  health.  Being  an 
Aristocrat,  Aristocracy  alone  wins  the  ap- 
proval of  his  reason  and  kindles  the  enthu- 
siasm of  his  heart.  And,  indeed,  social  con- 
ditions in  Hellas  differed  so  fundamentally 
from  our  civilized  conditions  today  that 
deductions  on  government,  as  it  existed 
in  the  century  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  can- 
not be  expected  to  apply  to  our  age.  The 
Hellenic  prime  out  of  which  sprang  the 
^  Book  VI,  chap.  n. 
17 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

matchless  marvels  of  Greek  genius  in  art, 
poetry,  and  thought  was  based  on  slavery 
and  serfdom.  Therefore  between  their  sys- 
tem and  ours  there  yawns  a  gulf  which 
cannot  be  bridged;  nor  can  we  appeal  too 
directly  to  them  for  example. 

By  using  the  Socratic  method,  Plato 
pours  over  the  failures  and  follies  of  De- 
mocracy his  inimitable  spray  of  sarcasm. 
He  never  becomes  heated,  or  over-zealous, 
or  acrid,  or  too  anxious  as  to  the  issue,  but 
here,  as  always,  he  seems  to  have  the  cer- 
titude in  his  soul  that  the  imperfect  things 
shall  pass  away,  no  matter  how  long  de- 
layed their  extinction  may  be,  and  that 
neither  ranting  nor  entreaty  can  add  one 
iota  to  the  majesty  of  truth.  Aristotle 
writes  even  more  impersonally,  as  a  chem- 
ist might  in  describing  chemical  elements 
and  reactions.  But  it  is  equally  clear  that 
he,  too,  holds  Democracy,  whether  as 
dreamed  of,  or  as  practised,  in  scant  es- 
teem. 

But  we  need  search  Antiquity  no  far- 
ther. Sufficient  for  us  to  know  that  the 
18 


DEMOCRACY 

greatest  of  the  Ancients  having  examined 
Democracy  in  theory,  and  witnessed  its 
working  in  various  phases  which  history 
up  to  their  time  laid  before  them,  regarded 
it  with  more  than  distrust  and  actually  re- 
pudiated it  as  an  ideal  form  of  govern- 
ment. Nor  need  we  linger  over  the  Dark 
and  Middle  Ages.  Only  when  we  come  to 
the  establishment  of  the  American  Repub- 
lic do  we  find  concrete  criticism  which  still 
seems  to  be  addressed  straight  at  us.  The 
desire  for  Liberty,  which  swept  like  a 
fructifying  monsoon  over  the  peoples  of 
Europe,  who  were  still  held  in  a  degener- 
ate but  tenacious  Feudalism,  captivated 
millions  of  hearts.  A  new  gospel  aroused 
and  possessed  them.  Liberty  explained 
itself,  justified  itself.  Those  who  were 
fired  by  it  felt  that  it  would  be  disloyalty 
to  defend  it  by  argument.  What  lover 
stoops  to  reason  in  behalf  of  love?  To 
spread  a  knowledge  of  Liberty  throughout 
the  world;  to  touch  with  its  inspiration  the 
hearts  and  wills  of  men;  to  substitute  it 
for  the  worn-out,  cruel,  or  palsying  sys- 
19 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

terns,  these  were  the  glorious  enterprises 

of  the  devotees  of  Liberty. 

"Bliss  was  it  in  that  dawn  to  be  alive. 
But  to  be  young,  was  very  heaven!" 

And,  indeed,  a  new  gospel  had  come 
into  the  world,  the  most  hopeful  and  re- 
juvenating since  that  of  Christ,  eighteen 
centuries  before.  It  proclaimed  that  all 
men  are  created  free  and  equal,  and  it  as- 
serted as  unanswerable  truths,  other  facts 
equally  startling  to  a  world  in  bondage  to 
a  moribund  past.  Hints  and  adumbrations 
of  this  gospel  can  be  found,  of  course,  scat- 
tered here  and  there  in  earlier  writings; 
but  they  were  not  brought  together,  they 
never  reached  the  dynamic  fusion  which 
is  necessary  for  a  creed,  or  a  theory,  or  a 
platform,  to  take  the  hearts  of  men  by 
storm  and  to  control  their  acts. 

The  shining  apostle  of  this  new  gospel 
was  Rousseau,  who  had  the  art  which 
Shakespeare  attributes  to  wine,  of  steal- 
ing away  men's  brains.  Rousseau  thrilled 
men's  hearts,  he  played  upon  their  emo- 
tions as  a  south  wind  plays  on  the  summer 
20 


DEMOCRACY 

wheat.  He  made  half-truths  more  lumi- 
nous and  seductive,  more  entrancing  and 
magnetic,  than  truth  has  ever  been  among 
the  masses.  Just  as  in  his  youth  he  had 
the  presumption  to  teach  music  without 
knowing  the  rudiments  of  musical  nota- 
tion, so  in  his  prime  he  made  Europe 
drunk  with  visions  of  a  Golden  Age,  which 
dated  from  an  imaginary  past  when  man, 
he  asserted,  lived  in  a  state  of  Nature  and 
was  good  and  free,  —  yes,  and  happy. 
Had  Rousseau  known  anything  about  the 
childhood  of  the  human  race,  he  would 
have  known  that  there  never  were  such  a 
Golden  Age  nor  such  virtuous  and  satisfied 
men  and  women.  The  epoch  he  painted 
never  existed;  the  "earliest  men  in  a  state 
of  Nature"  were  gorillas  and  orang-ou- 
tangs and  apes  in  which  the  human  re- 
semblances began  to  peep  out,  as  the  por- 
tents of  the  frog  break  through  the  surface 
of  the  astonished  tadpole. 

But    the    falsity    of    his    assumptions 
counted   for   nothing.    Although   he   de- 
scribed  a   past   and   glorified   a   human 
21 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

nature  which  never  existed,  his  hold  over 
men  was  undiminished,  for  they  wished  to 
hear  just  those  things  and  to  beHeve  in  a 
fabulous  world  which  matched  their  vague 
and  restless  imaginings  and  their  overmas- 
tering desires.  If  things  were  what  they 
were,  they  ought  to  be  what  Rousseau 
described  them. 

Even  today,  reading  his  "Social  Con- 
tract," and  recognizing  its  inherent  false- 
ness to  facts  present  and  facts  past,  I  find 
myself  glowing  in  admiration  of  his  ap- 
peals to  the  emotions,  although  my  head 
often  refuses  its  assent.  Suppose  a  man, 
endowed  with  the  most  musical  of  voices 
and  with  a  manner  which  instinctively 
brushed  aside  doubt  or  debate,  should 
pass  through  the  wards  of  a  hospital  and 
should  say  to  the  sick  and  wounded  in 
their  cots:  "Be  of  good  cheer!  You  are  all 
going  to  get  well!"  Would  not  his  hearers 
incline  to  believe  him.^^  Would  they  not  be 
buoyed  up  with  hope  which  corresponded 
to  their  needs?  Rousseau  did  even  more 
than  that.  He  fired  not  merely  the  sick  but 


DEMOCRACY 

all  classes  of  society  with  his  cheering  mes- 
sage; particularly  the  lower  and  lowest 
classes.  He  told  them  that  the  evils  which 
they  groaned  under  and  believed  to  be 
foreordained  and  incurable,  were  neither; 
that  they  had  gradually  become  part  of  a 
social  system  in  which  the  few  enjoyed  the 
riches,  privileges,  and  power  of  the  State, 
and  the  many,  unwillingly,  amassed  these 
elements  necessary  to  the  supremacy  and 
the  pleasure  of  the  few.  Change  Society. 
Restore  the  Golden  Age  in  which  all 
men  were  equal.  Restore  Liberty  —  and 
Utopia,  or  Paradise  even,  would  return 
for  all  to  dwell  in. 

From  this  inspiring  gospel  Fraternity 
and  Equality  stood  forth  beside  Liberty, 
as  the  ideals  which  should  shine  upon  the 
Golden  Age  in  prospect  and  should  guide 
the  down-trodden  in  their  march  towards 
it.  Hence,  swept  forth  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, the  bloody  conflict  of  class  with  class, 
the  mad  strife  for  Equality,  the  frantic 
protests  for  Fraternity,  while  something 
far  different  from  Fraternity  rankled  in 
23 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

the  Revolutionists'  hearts.  The  knife  of 
the  guillotine  alone  was  Democratic,  treat- 
ing the  necks  of  all  its  victims  alike.  And 
has  not  Rousseau's  message,  which  he  in- 
tended should  bring  in  a  benign  and  peace- 
ful future,  brought  instead  the  black  and 
frightful  class  feuds,  the  disorders,  and 
hatreds,  and  gnawing  en\"y  which  mark 
our  own  time  and  render  it  unhappy.^  At 
bottom,  was  not  Rousseauism,  through 
the  antagonisms  which  it  aroused,  the  real 
cause  of  the  late  Atrocious  War.^ 

The  Society  which  he  attacked  was  pre- 
cisely made  up  of  the  few,  the  members  of 
the  privileged  classes,  and  this  War  has 
been  their  final  struggle  to  preserve  their 
privileges  and  to  abolish  Liberty,  Equal- 
ity, and  Fraternity,  which,  being  the 
ideals  of  Democracy,  are  consequently 
the  implacable  enemies  of  Despotism.  As 
surely  as  noon  and  midnight  cannot  ex- 
ist in  the  same  place  at  the  same  time, 
so  surely  are  Democracy  and  Despotism 
mutually  abhorrent. 

When  Democracy  was  only  a  theory,  a 
24 


DEMOCRACY 

more  or  less  improbable  project  in  the 
mind  of  a  dreamer  here  and  there,  the  few 
who  took  it  seriously  found  it  an  easy- 
mark  for  then-  raillery;  but  bv  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  when  it  had 
already  become  a  challenging  fact  through 
the  persistence  of  the  United  States  and 
the  propaganda  of  theorists  in  Em-ope,  its 
opponents,  the  spokesmen  of  the  Priv- 
ileged Classes,  hurled  arguments,  invec- 
tives, and  sarcasm  upon  it.  Cavour,  who 
was  not  one  of  these,  looked  at  it  very 
soberly,  and  said  as  early  as  1835:  "We 
must  not  deceive  ourselves;  Society  is 
marching  with  gi'eat  strides  towards  De- 
mocracy; it  is,  perhaps,  impossible  to  fore- 
see the  forms  which  it  will  take  on;  but, 
as  to  its  substance,  it  is  not  doubtful,  at 
least  to  my  eyes." 

Every  aristocratic  public  man  amused 
himself  by  pointing  out  the  inherent  short- 
comings, not  to  say  absurdities,  of  Democ- 
racy. They  denied  that  men  are  created 
equal,  and  they  could  prove  in  any  gather- 
ing of  half  a  dozen  or  more,  that  inequal- 
25 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

ity,  in  intelligence,  in  feeling,  in  virtue, 
was  the  rule.  They  asked,  where  is  the 
forest  in  which  all  trees  grow  to  the  same 
height?  And  at  the  suggestion  of  universal 
suffrage,  which  is  the  simplest  confirma- 
tion of  equality,  they  ridiculed  the  as- 
sumption that  the  vote  of  an  intelligent 
and  prosperous  landowner  should  count 
no  more  than  that  of  his  illiterate  farm- 
hand, in  electing  the  candidates  to  admin- 
ister the  government.  When  you  are  sick 
you  don't  call  in  a  coal-heaver  to  give  you 
medical  advice,  you  seek  an  expert;  why, 
then,  in  politics  should  you  prefer  coal- 
heavers  to  experts  .f^  Bismarck,  the  lifelong 
champion  and  strengthener  of  Despotism, 
never  ceased  to  mock  at  Liberty,  and  to 
make  it  appear  silly  and  futile.  He  berated 
parliamentary  government  as  a  thing  to 
be  scorned  and  despised,  unworthy  of  the 
support  of  grown-up  men.  He  likened  a 
parliamentary  State  to  a  household  gov- 
erned by  its  nursery.  And  yet,  in  spite  of 
its  follies  and  failures,  in  spite  of  ridicule, 
abuse,  and  vehement  attack,  in  spite 
26 


DEMOCRACY 

even  of  the  attempt  in  despotic  countries 
to  punish  those  who  professed  it  in  secret, 
Democracy  went  forward  with  the  irre- 
sistibiHty  of  a  glacier,  and  often  with 
the  flaming  impetuosity  of  a  volcanic 
eruption. 

Aristotle,  you  remember,  thought  that 
Democracy  worked  best  among  a  com- 
munity of  husbandmen.  He  regarded  the 
poverty  of  the  men  who  adopted  it  as 
being  necessary  to  its  functioning.  Obvi- 
ously, if  you  have  a  tract  of  ten  square 
miles  inhabited  by  ten  shepherds  or  gra- 
ziers, each  of  whom  pastures  his  flocks  on 
his  own  square  mile,  there  will  be  very 
little  need  of  a  common  government.  At 
most,  those  ten  may  have  to  keep  up  a 
road  connecting  their  pastures;  there  will 
be  no  salaries,  and  therefore  no  struggle 
for  ofiice.  Contrast  this  ideal  Democratic 
body,  as  Aristotle  thought  of  it  twenty- 
three  hundred  years  ago,  with  one  of  our 
colossal  modern  Democratic  communities, 
like  New  York  City^  ox  London,  or  Paris, 
in  which  many  needs  of  first  importance 
27 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE  . 

—  water,  policing,  drainage,  streets,  pub- 
lic health  —  have  to  be  provided  and  di- 
rected by  persons  whom  the  city  chooses 
for  those  ends.  Immense  smns  of  money 
must  be  raised  in  order  to  pay  for  all  this 
common  work.  The  police  force  alone,  in 
New  York  or  in  London,  outniunbers  the 
entire  population  of  more  than  one  of  the 
small  ancient  Greek  States.  The  municipal 
employees  in  the  many  departments  swell 
to  an  army.  The  pastoral  community  had 
no  Bureaucracy  because  it  had  no  Bureau; 
but  in  the  modern  city  the  mere  bringing 
together  of  thousands  and  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  persons  engaged  in  the  same  de- 
partment creates  a  Bureaucracy.  They 
think  like  Bureaucrats,  they  have  com- 
mon Biu-eaucratic  standards  and  ideals, 
because  they  are  Bureaucrats.  The  annual 
budget  reaches  scores  of  millions  of  dol- 
lars, and  where  so  much  money  is,  there 
are  invariably  swarms  of  rapacious  beaks 
and  talons  to  seize  it.  If  the  men  at  the 
top  seek  office  to  gratify  their  ambition, 
the  throngs  below  them  regard  office- 
rs 


DEMOCR-\CY 

holding  as  their  means  of  Uvehhood.  And 
there  are  other  throngs  who  do  no  work, 
but  simply  live  on  the  crumbs  and  pick- 
ings from  the  great  expenditures. 

Now  all  this  has  been  charged  up 
against  Democracy  as  its  inevitable  prod- 
uct. How  different  the  practice  is  from 
what  good  men  dreamed  it  would  be! 
'*Wlien  among  the  happiest  people  in  the 
world,"  says  Rousseau,  "bands  of  peas- 
ants are  seen  regulating  affairs  of  State 
under  an  oak,  and  always  acting  wisely, 
can  we  help  scorning  the  ingenious  meth- 
ods of  other  nations,  which  make  them- 
selves illustrious  and  wretched  with  so 
much  art  and  mystery?"  Excellent  rhap- 
sody, from  the  master  rhapsodist  of  mod- 
ern times  I  But  that  oak  never  drove  its 
roots  into  actual  soil  and  never  lifted  its 
wide-spreading  leafage  towards  an  actual 
skj^;  it  had  no  existence  save  in  Rousseau's 
romantic  imagination. 

I  would  not  screen  Democracy  from  any 
charges,  aark  and  unlovely  though  they 
be,  which  can  be  justly  brought  against  it. 
29 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

The  sternest  condemnation  of  its  faults 
and  shortcomings  will  best  serve  to  correct 
them.  But  I  protest  in  the  name  of  Justice, 
against  drawing  a  parallel  between  the 
perfection  of  the  men,  who  never  existed, 
under  the  oak,  which  never  existed,  and 
the  sins  of  Democracy,  which  we  all  know. 

Take  our  Democracy  at  its  worst,  if  you 
will,  but  do  not  be  misled  into  supposing 
that  the  practices  which  you  justly  con- 
demn in  it,  are  not  common  to  other  forms 
of  government.  When  Bismarck  dickered 
with  the  Catholics  or  with  the  Jews  in  or- 
der to  carry  a  measure  in  the  Reichstag, 
he  was  doing  no  more  and  no  less  than  the 
late  Senator  Thomas  Piatt  did  when  he 
dickered  with  Tammany  Hall.  One  was  a 
Prussian  Prince,  the  other  a  New  York 
Republican  Boss ;  their  morality  and  their 
methods  were,  in  such  transactions,  iden- 
tical. 

Beware  of  idealizing  other  governments 

and  other  times  to  the  discredit  of  your 

own.  We  pick  out  a  period  which  was  not 

harassed  by  our  particular  torments,  and 

30 


DEMOCRACY 

we  wish  that  we  could  restore  it;  forget- 
ting that,  had  we  hved  then,  we  should 
have  had  to  face  other  and  perhaps  worse 
perplexities.  Father  Time  has  ridden 
many  horses,  but  Black  Care  has  mounted 
behind  him  on  every  one  of  them. 

We  must,  above  all  things,  learn  to  dis- 
tinguish the  substance  from  its  outer 
dress.  Human  nature  being  the  stuff  all 
societies  are  made  of,  we  must  seek  in 
other  epochs  the  equivalents  of  the  actors 
and  their  practices  of  today.  The  Dema- 
gogue, for  example,  is  held  to  be  the  con- 
spicuous, if  not  the  inevitable  spawn  of 
Democracy.  Loathsome  always  and  often 
despicable,  is  he  worse  than  the  Favor- 
ite —  his  incarnation  under  Absolute  Mon- 
archy? Have  not  countries  been  misgov- 
erned, wars  waged,  and  social  corruption 
promoted  by  Royal  Favorites?  Study  the 
history  of  England  under  Charles  II;  turn 
to  almost  any  page  of  Bourbon  annals  in 
France,  in  Italy,  in  Spain,  under  the  Old 
Regime;  look  behind  the  scenes  in  the  Ger- 
man States ;  dip  into  Russian  chronicles  — 
31 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

if  you  need  to  be  enlightened.  The  Favor- 
ite gets  his  power  by  flattering  the  Mon- 
arch, or  even  by  courting  the  Monarch's 
mistress;  the  Demagogue  owes  his  to  flat- 
tering the  multitude.  Toady  for  toady, 
which  shall  we  choose?  Which,  does  his- 
tory show,  has  had  the  greater  scope  for 
doing  harm?  For  myself,  I  prefer,  if  the 
President  of  the  United  States  must  have 
an  unauthorized  and  extra-constitutional 
political  advisor  and  collector  of  political 
public  opinion,  Colonel  House  to  Madame 
de  Maintenon,  who  partly  served  Louis 
XIV  in  those  offices,  or  to  Madame  Du 
Barry  who  had  even  higher  ascendancy 
over  Louis  XV. 

By  these  hints  I  would  stimulate  you  to 
look  facts  straight  in  the  face  and  to  de- 
cide for  yourselves  whether  the  evils  at- 
tributed to  Democracy  are  really  insepa- 
rable from  it  or  belong  equally  to  other 
forms  of  government.  I  do  not  excuse  the 
evils  on  the  ground  that  they  are  common 
alike  to  Absolutism  and  to  Republicanism : 
two  wrongs  do  not  make  a  right.  The 
32 


DEMOCRACY 

question  we  wish  to  solve  is,  whether  De- 
mocracy cannot  be  purged  of  these  evils 
and  so  stand  forth  in  everybody's  eyes  as 
the  ideal  system.  Cavour,  who  had  wit- 
nessed the  working  of  a  great  Despotism 
like  Austria,  of  petty  and  parasitic  Des- 
potisms, like  those  of  the  Pope  and  the 
Bourbons,  of  the  pretended  Limited  Mon- 
archy of  the  Orleanists  in  France,  and  of 
Constitutional  Representative  Govern- 
ment in  England,  remarked:  "The  worst 
of  Chambers  is  better  than  the  best  of 
Ante-Chambers."  This  saying  should  be 
laid  to  heart  by  the  trusters  in  Democracy 
to  cheer  them  in  their  days  of  despond. 

How  much  of  the  evil  is  due  to  Democ- 
racy and  how  much  is  inherent  in  human 
nature?  That  is  our  question.  Being  ide- 
ally the  highest  form  of  government,  De- 
mocracy demands  of  its  votaries  the  high- 
est qualifications.  What  are  these .^^  Intelli- 
gence, and  moral  sense.  Since  Democracy 
requires  that  the  persons  who  administer 
the  Government  shall  represent  the  pref- 
erences of  a  majority  of  all  the  voters,  we 
33 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

take  it  for  granted  that  every  voter  shall 
be  suflSciently  informed  to  know  what  he 
is  voting  for,  and  sufficiently  intelligent  to 
vote  with  judgment.  This  is  a  most  com- 
plimentary assumption,  which  experience 
hardly  confirms.  We  recently  had  a  Secre- 
tary of  State,  Mr.  William  J.  Bryan,  who 
was  not  aware  that  Denmark  owned  any 
islands  in  the  West  Indies,  and  it  added  to 
our  pride  at  possessing  such  a  prodigy,  to 
read  the  report  that  he  sent  an  invitation 
to  the  Swiss  Navy  to  attend  one  of  our 
naval  celebrations !  How  can  we  expect  our 
Democracy  to  function  properly,  if  the 
plain  citizens,  like  you  and  me  and  the 
hod-carrier,  are  no  better  informed  than  is 
an  American  Prime  Minister.'^  Let  us  not 
damn  Democracy  as  a  hopelessly  inade- 
quate system,  so  long  as  we  tolerate  such 
ignorant  persons  in  the  highest  offices.  If 
we  set  them  to  drive  a  locomotive,  we 
should  not  be  surprised  at  any  disaster 
their  ignorance  of  engineering  caused. 
Why  are  we  surprised  that  government, 
which  is  a  far  more  delicate  mechanism, 
34 


DEMOCRACY 

sometimes  has  collisions  when  we  entrust 
it  to  the  inexpert?  We  should  blame  our- 
selves, not  Democracy. 

On  the  other  hand,  mere  intelligence 
will  not  suffice.  The  appalling  dereliction 
of  Germany  has  proved  that.  In  1914  no 
other  nation  in  the  world  had  so  large  a 
proportion  of  educated  men,  women,  and 
children  as  had  Germany.  The  Germans 
were,  in  fact,  almost  embarrassingly  intel- 
ligent. The  man  who  blacked  my  boots  in 
Leipzig  was  a  Ph.D.  and  was  said  to  be 
the  chief  living  authority  on  the  use  of  the 
optative  mood  by  Hesiod.  I  did  not  dare 
to  test  him  because  I  could  n't  remember 
a  line  of  Hesiod  in  Greek.  However,  no  one 
doubted  the  unmatched  literacy  of  the 
Germans;  and  yet  what  was  it  all  worth.'^ 

What  is  anything  worth  unless  it  can 
stand  the  moral  test.?  I  take  it  that  De- 
mocracy is  to  our  hopes  the  best  of  all 
forms  of  government,  because  it  is  the 
most  moral.  Consider  your  individual  life, 
or  almost  any  hour  of  any  day;  as  you  re- 
view it,  can  you  honestly  declare  that  by 
35 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

its  thoughts  and  deeds  you  showed  your- 
self at  your  highest  level?  On  what  day 
was  it  that  you  lived  so  nobly  as  to  cause 
any  one  to  infer  that  you  are  worthy  of 
Eternal  Life?  Nevertheless,  during  the 
days  which,  in  the  retrospect,  seemed 
meanest  and  meagrest,  you  carried  latent 
within  your  heart  your  aspirations,  your 
hopes,  your  faith  —  probably  unanalyzed 
by  you  —  that  you  were  really  a  part  of 
the  Eternal.  Does  not  this  suggest  the 
truth  in  regard  to  Democracy  also?  In 
spite  of  its  shocking  lapses  from  its  ideal, 
is  it  not  indeed  the  Ark  of  the  highest 
Covenant,  which  men  have  entered  into, 
with  the  Divine,  for  their  collective  gov- 
ernment and  growth?  Does  the  existence, 
often  impudently  flourishing,  of  Tam- 
many Hall,  and  its  counterparts  in  our 
great  cities,  really  shake  your  faith  in  the 
American  Constitution?  Does  not  the  very 
fact  that  the  organization  of  all  the  wicked 
and  vicious  forces  of  a  city,  under  the 
name  of  Tammany  Hall,  shocks  you,  show 
that  you  recognize  that  Tammany  is  not 
36 


DEMOCRACY 

a  necessary  product  of  Democracy?  Under 
Borgian  and  Medicean  Popes,  commer- 
cialized vice  and  flagrant  corruption  tri- 
umphed openly  to  an  extent  that  would 
arouse  the  envy  and  the  astonishment 
of  any  Tammanyized  Boss  today. 

The  Renaissance  of  the  Borgias  and  the 
Medici  left  magnificent  creations  in  the 
arts  and  in  literature  to  delight  mankind 
forever,  but  we  must  not  therefore  idealize 
it  as  a  Golden  Age  to  live  in.  We  must  not 
allow  splendid  exceptions  to  dazzle  us,  or 
blind  us  to  the  average  condition  of  all 
who  live  under  any  system  of  government. 
Prodigies  of  virtue,  monsters  of  cruelty 
and  vice,  crop  out  at  every  stage  of  civ- 
ilization. No  creed  has  been  framed  so 
grim  that  sweet  and  saintly  souls  have  not 
professed  it,  nor  so  kindly  that  it  has  not 
harbored  some  sinners.  Not  the  exceptions, 
but  the  average  is  the  test.  So  in  the  long 
run,  unreasoning  fidelity  to  a  sovereign, 
or  leader,  or  doctrine  debases,  because  it 
substitutes  blind  passion  for  reason  and 
conscience.  Such  passion,  just  because  it  is 
37 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

blind,  may  plunge  towards  perdition  as 
easily  as  mount  towards  salvation.  If  am- 
bitious monarchs  had  not  counted  upon 
such  fidelity  and  abject  obedience,  most  of 
the  wars  would  never  have  been  fought, 
and  the  world  would  not  be  blasted  today 
by  the  most  atrocious  of  all  wars.  Had 
William  the  Second  not  been  able  to  count 
upon  the  servile  obedience  of  millions  of 
Germans  to  fight  for  him,  he  would  never 
have  made  war;  for  during  four  years  and 
a  half  of  actual  conflict,  when  hundreds  of 
tons  of  shells  and  bullets  were  discharged 
daily,  he  and  his  six  sons  scrupulously 
kept  out  of  range  of  all  danger.  The  dema- 
gogue's plea,  "Our  country,  right  or 
wrong,"  would  never  be  heard  if  states- 
men directed  the  policy  of  nations,  and 
citizens  were  too  intelligent  and  too  right- 
eous to  be  seduced  by  demagogues  into 
supporting  an  unjust  quarrel.  Unreason- 
ing patriotism,  by  reducing  citizens  to 
the  level  of  machines,  which  work  or  stop 
at  the  operative's  will,  is  to  be  abolished. 
Any  patriotism  which  does  not  rise  above 
38 


DEMOCRACY 

the  instinct  which  makes  cats  and  dogs 
enemies  at  sight,  is  a  dangerous  posses- 
sion, Hable  to  explode  at  any  moment  and 
in  any  direction. 

I  have  said  enough  to  show  that  the 
freedom  which  true  Democracy  requires 
for  the  training  of  true  Democrats  leads  to 
a  higher  state  than  that  which  despotic, 
feudal,  or  monarchical  systems  attain. 
The  abject  fetish  worship  of  Prussian 
peasants  and  professors  of  their  King,  was 
no  more  admirable  than  is  the  supersti- 
tious regard  of  the  Russian  moujik  for  an 
ikon.  All  such  sentiments  originated  in 
fetish  worship,  and  those  who  still  harbor 
them  reveal  under  stress  the  savageness  of 
the  plane  which  their  own  moral  develop- 
ment has  reached. 

Unless  you  believe  that  the  majority 
of  mankind  can  never  advance  beyond  a 
more  or  ?ess  disguised  fetish-worship,  you 
will  not  be  deluded  into  accepting  any 
form  of  fetishism  as  final.  In  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  human  race  the  passage  from 
lowest  to  highest  has  often  been  inter- 
39 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

rupted,  but  never  checked.  In  that  pas- 
sage, fetishism  has  its  place;  but  the  fact 
that  the  race  did  not  remain  forever  on 
that  level,  proves  that  fetishism  is  inca- 
pable of  fulfilling  the  potential  human  ca- 
pacities. And  so  of  tribalism,  feudalism, 
and  all  other  partial  systems,  in  which 
humanity  bivouacs  on  its  march  towards 
perfection.  It  is  because  ideal  Democracy 
calls  for  the  highest  development  in  each 
individual  of  which  he  is  capable,  and  pre- 
supposes Freedom,  without  which  there 
can  be  no  such  development,  that  we  hail 
it  as  the  highest  revelation  thus  far  vouch- 
safed to  man. 

I  have  wished  to  present  Democracy  to 
you  exactly  as  it  appears,  I  will  not  say  at 
its  worst,  but  at  its  average.  I  have  not 
glossed  over  the  objections  the  philoso- 
phers raise  against  it,  nor  the  pungent 
satirical  comment  of  its  enemies.  I  have 
insisted,  however,  that  before  you  can 
judge  it  fairly  you  must  remember  that 
many  of  its  shortcomings  are  not  peculiar 
to  it,  but  are  found  in  other  forms  of  gov- 
40 


DEMOCRACY 


ernment;  they  must  not  be  attributed  to 
some  fatal  flaw  in  its  nature.  Whatever 
its  defects,  it  has  kept  aUve  and  promoted 
Liberty. 


II 

DISCIPLINE 

In  my  previous  paper  I  tried  to  define  the 
ideal  basis  on  which  Democracy  rests,  and 
then  I  went  on  to  sum  up  the  chief  objec- 
tions which  have  been  made  to  it  in  theory 
and  the  charges  levelled  against  its  short- 
comings in  practice.  My  own  view  is,  that 
Democracy,  being  the  final  expression  in 
political  and  social  life  of  our  assumption 
of  the  Freedom  of  the  Will,  it  is  and  must 
be  the  highest  form  of  government.  "True 
enough,"  replies  the  hostile  critic,  "but 
there  are  many  beautiful  dreams  in  the 
imagination  of  visionaries  which  no  sensi- 
ble person  expects  to  see  realized  on  earth. 
Seraph  wings,  for  instance,  would  be  very 
useful,  but  we  cannot  argue  from  their 
usefulness  or  from  our  desire,  that  we  shall 
ever  have  them.  Is  the  realization  of  De- 
mocracy any  more  probable?" 
To  carry  the  doctrine  of  the  Freedom  of 
42 


DISCIPLINE 

the  Will  to  its  proper  conclusion  brings 
us  inevitably  to  Liberty  —  Liberty  of  the 
Individual.  Democracy,  therefore,  should 
mean  the  system  under  which  each  indi- 
vidual is  free  to  follow  his  own  will.  In  real 
life,  however,  practical  difficulties  at  once 
arise.  Here  are  two,  three,  fifty,  or  five 
hundred  persons  whose  wills  conflict  with 
each  other.  How  is  harmony  possible 
among  them?  And  if  the  stronger  wills 
bear  down  and  control  the  weaker,  where 
does  Freedom  come  in.f^  If  we  answer  hon- 
estly the  question  put  in  this  way,  we  have 
to  admit  that  it  does  not  come  in  at  all. 

But  this  is  not  the  true  angle  from 
which  to  approach  the  subject.  Only  a 
Robinson  Crusoe,  alone  on  a  desert  island, 
could  act  as  he  pleased  without  danger 
of  conflicting  with  any  other  human  will. 
Needless  to  say  that  the  freedom  he  might 
enjoy  in  this  respect  would  be  curtailed  a 
hundred  fold  in  all  others.  Because  Man 
is  not  made  to  live  alone;  he  is,  in  the 
words  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  a  social  animal, 
and  he  can  reach  his  full  stature  only  in 
43 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

society.  The  vital  question,  accordingly,  is 
by  what  system  can  he  attain  the  highest 
development  of  all  his  faculties  in  a  com- 
munity with  his  fellows;  not  what  he 
would  or  could  do  on  a  desert  island  or  in  a 
vacuum.  Only  by  assuming  the  Freedom 
of  the  Will  can  we  regard  Man  as  a  moral, 
responsible  being;  as  one,  that  is,  who  has 
direct  immediate  relation  with  the  Su- 
preme Being  from  whom,  under  whatever 
name  He  is  called,  emanate  our  human 
conceptions  of  righteousness  and  virtue. 
If  you  suppose  that  some  one  can  come 
between  the  human  soul  and  God  and  that 
the  Individual  can  be  controlled  by  such 
an  intermediary,  you  destroy  the  idea  of 
the  free  exercise  of  the  Will.  Likewise,  in 
human  relations,  large  and  small,  we  as- 
sume Freedom.  We  do  not  love  under 
compulsion  —  our  love  for  our  mother  or 
friend  is  free.  The  most  terrible  despot 
could  not  compel  us  to  accept  into  our 
hearts  his  abhorrent  ideals  in  place  of  those 
which  we  love  and  revere  and  have  lived  by. 
Freedom  being,  therefore,  the  very  in- 


DISCIPLINE 

spiration  which  chastens  and  glorifies  all 
our  other  highest  passions  and  conduct, 
how  can  we  presume  to  exclude  it  from 
our  social  and  political  relations?  How  can 
we  imagine  that  under  a  tyranny,  whether 
it  be  composed  of  one  or  many  persons, 
which  orders  the  Individual  what  to  think 
and  what  to  do,  he  can  develop  the  facul- 
ties he  requires  for  leading  his  life  as  a 
political  or  social  animal?  If  an  athletic 
trainer  whose  object  should  be  to  bring 
every  part  of  the  body  of  the  youth  under 
him  to  perfection,  should  devise  a  regi- 
men by  which  the  youth  lost  the  use  of  an 
arm  or  a  leg,  what  should  we  say  of  such 
training?  This  is  exactly  what  the  Despot 
does.  He  cripples  or  suppresses  various 
faculties,  moral  and  intellectual  alike,  of 
his  subjects,  with  the  result  that  he  leaves 
only  halves  or  lesser  fractions  of  men  for 
his  domination.  The  HohenzoUern  Des- 
pots, for  instance,  reduced  the  Germans 
to  the  most  abjectly  obedient  and  servile 
mass  that  the  world  has  ever  seen;  a  na- 
tion whose  soldiers  clicked  their  heels  in 
45 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

unison  and  whose  civilians  uttered  their 
thoughts  in  uniformity  to  Imperial  com- 
mand. But  at  what  a  cost  was  this  vast 
machine  of  Despotism  arrived  at!  The 
German  was  taught  to  deny  Truth,  to 
deny  Humanity,  to  wallow  in  Deceit,  to 
gloat  over  Frightfulness.  The  Man  in  him, 
the  responsible  moral  entity,  dwindled 
away  until  only  a  heartless,  soulless  ma- 
chine remained. 

The  political  moralists  all  agreed  that 
even  if  a  Democracy  could  be  set  up  any- 
where on  the  beautiful  and  alluring  lines 
which  visionaries  propose,  it  could  not 
last,  for  it  is  as  frail  as  a  very  delicate 
flower,  as  perishable  as  the  ripest  fruit. 
They  agree,  also,  that  Democracy  when 
it  degenerates  turns  quickly  into  a  lawless, 
turbulent,  cruel  Mobocracy,  which,  after 
a  brief  orgy  of  misrule,  becomes  the  prey 
of  the  strong  man,  the  tyrant.  The  history 
of  the  tiny  Republics  of  ancient  Hellas,  of 
the  City-States  of  ancient  Sicily,  of  the 
municipal  Democracies  of  medieval  Italy, 
unquestionably  give  color  to  this  opinion. 
46 


DISCIPLINE 

"There  is  the  moral  of  all  human  tales; 

'T  is  but  the  same  rehearsal  of  the  past. 

First  Freedom  and  then  Glory  —  when  that  fails. 

Wealth,  vice,  corruption  —  barbarism  at  last."  ^ 

But  if  we  possess  any  historical  sense 
we  must  take  time  and  conditions  into  our 
reckoning.  Water  becomes  ice  at  one  tem- 
perature and  steam  at  another,  and  the 
laws  which  govern  ice  and  steam  do  not 
necessarily  apply  to  water.  We  must  not 
measure  the  mastodon  by  the  limits  of  the 
mole.  The  little  Republic  of  antiquity, 
bounded  by  a  few  square  miles  and  in- 
habited by  a  few  score  thousands  of  souls, 
is  not  necessarily  the  norm  for  a  vast  mod- 
ern Republic  which  stretches  over  half  a 
continent  and  shelters  its  hundred  million 
or  more  inhabitants.  The  causes  which  led 
to  the  decay  and  collapse  of  Theban  De- 
mocracy need  not,  therefore,  apply  to  our 
own.  Not  only  does  each  form  of  govern- 
ment develop  a  sort  of  protective  colora- 
tion or  recuperative  power,  but  it  sees 
these  reactions  differ  at  different  ages; 

^  Byron :  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrimage,  canto  rv,  cvm. 
47 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

and  the  historian  must  take  most  scrupu- 
lous pains  to  discover  just  what  effect  the 
conditions  of  this  time  or  that  have  upon 
a  given  system. 

Failure  to  do  this  has  brought  Democ- 
racy into  disrepute.  Most  persons  today 
regard  Democracy  as  a  sort  of  panacea  or 
quack  medicine  which  will  cure  every  dis- 
ease from  measles  to  marasmus.  In  truth, 
however,  no  such  panacea  exists,  either  for 
the  body  physical  or  the  body  politic.  Few 
indeed  are  the  tribes  or  nations  which  have 
climbed  up  to  the  level  where  they  can  be 
trusted  with  Democracy.  The  exultation 
with  which  the  unthinking,  a  few  years 
ago,  hailed  the  so-called  Democracies  of 
the  Young  Turks  and  of  China  show^ed  the 
shallowness  of  popular  understanding  of 
the  essence  of  government.  As  I  take  my 
morning  walk  I  meet  a  friend  who  beams 
with  smiles  and  says:  "Isn't  it  splendid 
that  the  people  of  Southern  Borneo  have 
set  up  a  President .f*"  Or:  "These  are  bad 
times  for  pessimists!  Progress,  progress,  is 
the  countersign.  Have  you  seen  the  dis- 
48 


DISCIPLINE 

patch  that  reports  that  the  people  of  the 
Cannibal  Islands  have  eaten  their  des- 
potic King  and  declared  themselves  a 
Republican  Federation?"  To  which  I  re- 
ply, as  sympathetically  as  possible:  "Yes, 
it  is  a  fine  morning,  I  hope  it  won't  rain 
before  noon." 

The  question  is,  therefore,  not  whether 
Democracy  is  excellent  in  theory,  but 
whether  a  people  is  ready  to  use  it  profit- 
ably. Even  Rousseau,  to  whom  so  many 
social  and  political  orgiasts  appeal  for 
sanctions,  recognized  this:  "As,  before 
putting  up  a  large  building,"  he  says,  "the 
architect  surveys  and  sounds  the  site  to 
see  if  it  will  bear  the  weight,  the  wise  legis- 
lator does  not  begin  by  laying  down  laws, 
good  in  themselves,  but  by  investigating 
the  fitness  of  the  people,  for  which  they 
are  destined,  to  receive  them."  ^  Should 
not  this  be  the  guiding  rule  of  even  the 
most  exuberant  champion  of  Democracy.'* 
I,  at  least,  accept  it  in  the  brief  consider- 
ations which  follow. 

*  Social  Contract,  Book  n,  chap,  viii,  p.  38. 
49 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

Ideally,  Democracy  should  come  to  a 
people  gradually,  as  fast  as  individuals 
and  groups  are  prepared  to  receive  it  and 
to  make  the  best  use  of  it.  But  the  Course 
of  Things  has  a  churlish  contempt  for  the 
plans  of  thinkers  and  often  thrusts  a  novel 
cause  forward,  before  Society  has  ab- 
sorbed and  mastered  the  preceding  cause. 
Thus  the  world  had  not  learned  how  to 
use  Democracy  before  Socialism  crashed 
to  the  front.  Socialism  is  the  negation  of 
Democracy.  It  would  place  the  world  in 
a  strait-jacket  as  rigid,  as  cramping,  as 
crippling  even,  as  is  the  oppression  of 
the  most  successful  tyrant.  Not  by  chance 
does  it  happen  that  the  race  which  in- 
vented Feudalism,  and  in  modern  times 
has  perfected  the  State  as  Despot  under 
Prussian  control,  should  also  have  devised 
and  elaborated  Socialism  as  a  system, 
which  is  to  possess  the  earth.  It  may  be 
that  for  an  age  or  two  Socialism  may  keep 
up  its  drive  against  Civilization  with  in- 
cessant turmoil  and  fluctuations  between 
the  quiet  of  men  gagged  and  bound  hand 
50 


DISCIPLINE 

and  foot  and  the  disorders  and  writhings 
of  their  struggles  to  free  themselves.  It 
may  be  that  the  very  dregs,  the  Bolshe- 
viki,  who  claim  to  be  Socialists  in  order  to 
camouflage  their  lust  for  blood  and  loot, 
may  bring  back  Chaos  for  a  time,  but  the 
one  truth  to  which  in  the  darkest  days  we 
may  cling  is  that  Chaos  cannot  endure. 
Order,  not  Chaos,  is  Heaven's  first  law; 
and  after  Socialism  and  Bolshevism  had 
done  their  worst,  Democracy,  the  ulti- 
mate human  ideal,  though  postponed  for 
centuries  and  ages,  would  come  back  to 
demand  the  attention  and  allegiance  of 
man. 

We  cannot  too  often  repeat  that  the 
master  word  of  Democracy  is  Individual- 
ity. Democracy  does  not  compute  man- 
kind by  masses  and  multitudes.  It  believes 
that  the  largest  multitude  is  made  up  of 
Individuals  and  that  the  final  purpose  in 
our  life  here  is  to  raise  every  Individual 
to  the  highest  level  which  his  nature  and 
faculties  fit  him  for.  Walt  Whitman  once? 
said  to  me,  "  I  guess  the  secret  of  the  influ- 
51 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

ence  of  Jesus  Christ  is,  that  He  believed 
that  every  human  being  had  something  in 
him  worth  saving."  We  were  not  talking 
theology  or  political  theory,  but  simply 
about  life  and  its  upshot  and  outlook,  and 
Walt's  casual  remark  seemed  to  me  then, 
and  seems  to  me  now  after  thirty  years,  to 
be  worth  many  volumes  of  theological 
exegesis.  Pure  Socialism,  on  the  contrary, 
ignores  the  Individual  and  deals  prefer- 
ably with  the  greatest  mass  of  all  —  the 
State.  Quite  logically,  therefore,  the  con- 
ception of  the  State  which  the  Germans 
have  held  up  for  Europe  and  America 
to  admire  and  to  imitate  is  a  Despotism 
pleasing  alike  to  HohenzoUern  Autocracy 
and  to  German  Socialism. 

I  am  a  Democrat,  however,  and  the 
Democratic  ideal  which  I  serve,  holds  in- 
flexibly to  the  sacredness  of  the  Individ- 
ual. From  this  it  follows  that  the  problem 
of  Democracy  is  how  to  safeguard  the 
Individual  and  at  the  same  time  maintain 
the  rights  of  the  collective  Individuals 
who  form  a  State.  The  answer  is  that  we 
52 


DISCIPLINE 

can  do  this  by  Discipline,  by  Education. 
Before  you  dismiss  this  answer  as  banal  or 
too  easy  for  so  complicated  a  matter,  con- 
sider what  it  means.  Consider  and  be  con- 
trite as  the  phantom  of  the  pompous  boast 
and  Pharisaical  sham,  called  American 
Public  Education,  rises  before  you.  At 
best,  it  is  the  ghost  of  a  good  intention. 
We  have  gone  on  for  generations  repeating 
the  old  humbug  about  the  little  red  school- 
houses,  in  which  was  guarded  the  Palla- 
dium of  our  liberty  and  from  which  issued 
our  future  Presidents  and  statesmen.  We 
have  thanked  God  for  our  public  schools, 
the  corner-stone  of  our  Democracy;  and 
having  given  these  perfunctory  thanks  we 
have  gone  away  about  our  business  and 
left  our  schools  to  look  after  themselves 
and,  too  often,  to  decay.  Nothing  is  more 
certain,  however,  than  that  the  stability 
and  the  open-minded  sagacity  of  a  Demo- 
cratic State  must  depend  on  Education. 
We  have  been  so  busy  attending  to  other 
things  that  we  have  neglected  these 
fundamentals. 

53 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

To  be  unwilling  to  learn  from  an  enemy 
indicates  dangerous  self-esteem.  To  be  un- 
able to  learn  is  a  premonition  of  incurable 
decline.  During  the  century  preceding 
the  Atrocious  War  the  Germans  devel- 
oped the  most  complete  system  of  edu- 
cation operating  in  any  country  in  the 
world.  As  the  power  of  Prussia  increased, 
German  education  was  made  more  and 
more  the  servant  of  that  power  and  the 
promoter  of  its  ambitions.  After  the 
founding  of  the  German  Empire  which 
formally  sealed  Prussia's  domination  in 
Germany,  the  educational  system  vied 
with  the  military  system  in  converting 
Germany  into  a  Draconic  Despotism,  and 
of  making  that  Despotism  not  only  pala- 
table to  the  Germans,  but  the  object  of 
their  ideals.  Wherein  did  the  marvellous 
efficiency  of  the  German  educational  sys- 
tem lie?  It  lay  in  the  fact  that  it  had  a  direct 
purpose  in  view,  and  that  in  every  essence 
and  detail  it  served  that  purpose.  Nothing 
was  left  to  chance,  nothing  to  individual 
caprice,  nothing  to  hesitation  or  debate. 
54 


DISCIPLINE 

With  an  ingenuity  and  a  persistence 
worthy  of  the  noblest  cause,  this  educa- 
tion did  not  stop  until  it  converted  every 
German,  prince  or  peasant,  Junker  or  cap- 
italist, into  an  unquestioning  servant  of 
the  Emperor,  the  Absolute  Head  of  the 
State.  He  held  his  office  by  "divine 
right."  A  strange  Deity  —  a  composite  of 
Frederick  the  Great  and  the  good  old 
*'Gott"  Thor  of  the  Teuton  barbarians  — • 
was  invented  to  be  the  Kaiser's  partner 
and  to  give  a  sort  of  mystical,  suj>ernal 
warrant  for  his  acts.  The  German  people, 
by  nature  envious  and  bloated  with  con- 
ceit, were  flattered  by  being  assured  by 
their  professors,  politicians,  and  pastors, 
that  they  were  the  Chosen  People,  and 
that  modesty  or  any  admission  that  any 
other  people  could  equal  them  in  any  re- 
spect, were  signs  of  a  craven  spirit.  The 
so-called  religion  they  adopted  served  only 
for  them.  If  they  retained  any  scruples  of 
conscience,  they  were  taught  that  the 
moral  law  of  other  peoples  had  no  force  in 
Germany;  that  absolute  obedience  to  the 
55 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

Kaiser  and  absolute  loyalty  to  the  Father- 
land comprised  all  the  law  and  the  gospel 
they  required.  No  crime,  no  hypocrisy,  no 
baseness,  would  be  imputed  against  them 
if  it  were  directed  against  the  foreigner  for 
the  glory  of  the  Fatherland. 

So  there  grew  up  in  Germany  what  we 
may  regard  as  a  horrible  reversal  of  reli- 
gion. To  lie,  to  deceive,  even  to  murder,  in 
order  to  promote  German  interests,  were 
not  sins  but  patriotic  virtues.  The  Kai- 
ser and  the  little  Ring  with  whom  and 
through  whom  he  worked,  found  the  Ger- 
man people  only  too  willing  to  be  em- 
ployed to  advance  their  evil  ambition.  To 
have  reduced  65,000,000  Germans  to  a 
state  of  immoral  pulp  which  could  be  used 
for  any  purpose  the  Kaiser  desired,  as  if  it 
were  a  single,  servile  creature,  but  trained 
to  do  with  amazing  thoroughness  just 
what  he  desired  they  should  do,  and  no 
more  or  no  less,  asking  no  questions,  nurs- 
ing no  scruples,  licking  the  hand  of  its 
master  with  spaniel-like  fawning  —  that 
is  the  astonishing  monument  which  the 
56 


DISCIPLINE 

German  system  of  education,  set  going 
by  William  von  Humboldt  and  Baron 
Stein  —  two  sane  and  enlightened  bene- 
factors —  had  raised  to  itself  in  a  hundred 
years.  It  took  the  little  boy  in  the  kinder- 
garten and  led  him  forward  by  carefully 
measured  steps  to  the  university,  and  at 
the  end  of  his  university  career  it  let  him 
loose  on  the  world  a  thoroughly  Prussian- 
ized person,  holding  the  views  on  politics, 
the  State,  the  sanctity  of  the  Hohenzollern 
and  Pan-German  ambition,  which  his 
masters  taught  him,  and  no  others. 
Whether  he  went  into  the  army  or  into 
professional  life,  he  owed  his  livelihood 
and  his  promotion  to  the  State.  But  the 
shrewd  devisers  of  this  system,  which  was 
intended  to  fortify  the  Autocrat  and  his 
small  Ring  in  the  privileged  class,  took 
care  not  to  open  the  treasure-house  of 
knowledge  to  all  Germans.  They  did  not 
prepare  the  sons  of  peasants  and  of  the 
lower  classes  for  the  gymnasia  and  univer- 
sities, but  they  stopped  their  education  in 
boyhood  —  it  was  enough  for  them  to 
57 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

learn  instant  obedience.  If  they  were  al- 
lowed to  rove  over  the  fields  of  politics  and 
philosophy,  they  might  be  disturbed  by 
unorthodox  thoughts. 

Now  what  does  this  tragic  story  of  Ger- 
man education  teach  .^^  It  teaches  the  tran- 
scendent power  of  education  itself,  when 
duly  organized  and  carried  out  thor- 
oughly and  uninterruptedly.  It  warns  us 
that  here  is  a  force  which,  working  slowly, 
sweeping  into  every  crevice,  spreading 
and  acting  cumulatively  like  a  slowly  ris- 
ing inundation,  at  last  transforms  Society 
and,  it  may  be,  sweeps  all  its  dams  away. 
Judging  by  the  German  example,  it  needs 
only  fifty  years  to  reach  its  goal.  There 
are  many  elderly  men  among  us  who  stud- 
ied at  German  Universities  in  their  youth 
when  a  different  spirit  prevailed,  and  they 
little  suspected  that  the  transformation, 
at  which  they  now  stand  aghast,  was  al- 
ready beginning.  Fifty  years  .^^  They  seem 
but  a  span  in  the  life  of  a  people.  The 
tiger's  cub,  tiny  and  kind  and  playful, 
may  be  a  child's  pet,  but  in  a  little  while  it 
58 


DISCIPLINE 

grows  up  to  be  a  tiger,  man-eating,  cruel, 
sly,  merciless.  So  the  Germans  of  our 
youth  have  been  turned  by  an  evil  meta- 
morphosis into  the  Prussians  of  today, 
odious  and  abominable  forever  to  civilized 
men. 

We  must  not  forget,  however,  that 
nearly  two  and  a  half  centuries  before 
Humboldt  and  Stein,  and  their  colleagues, 
launched  the  Prussian  experiment  in  edu- 
cation, the  Jesuits  organized  a  similar  sys- 
tem with  equal  solicitude  as  to  details,  and 
equal  singleness  as  to  purpose.  After  un- 
dergoing his  twenty  or  more  years  of  dis- 
cipline the  novice  became  literally  brimful 
with  Jesuitry.  His  thoughts,  his  motives, 
had  only  the  interests  of  his  Order  at 
heart,  and  his  will  belonged  to  his  Supe- 
rior. For  him,  too,  common  morals,  and  re- 
ligion had  no  existence,  if  they  conflicted 
with  Jesuit  plans.  The  hideous  doctrine 
that  the  end  justifies  the  means  guided 
the  practice  of  the  Jesuits,  although  they 
denied  professing  it.  For  us  now,  the  sig- 
nificant fact  is,  that  by  their  method  of 
59 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

teaching,  by  their  schools  and  academies, 
they  too  proved  the  immense,  the  over- 
whelming power  of  education.  Fletcher  of 
Saltoun  said,  "That  if  a  man  were  per- 
mitted to  make  all  the  ballads,  he  need  not 
care  who  should  make  the  laws  of  a  na- 
tion." The  Jesuits  used  to  say,  with  even 
more  certitude,  "Let  us  teach  any  boy 
until  he  is  fourteen  and  he  is  ours  for  life." 
We  must  acknowledge,  therefore,  the 
immeasurable  potency  of  education,  and 
organize  such  a  system  that  the  American 
children  of  today  shall  all  be  the  American 
patriots  of  tomorrow.  In  our  training 
there  should  be  no  stealing  away  of  mor- 
als, no  deadening  of  scruples,  no  poisoning 
of  motives,  in  order  to  exalt  Kultur,  nor 
should  there  be  any  putting  on  of  blinders 
in  order  to  prevent  our  pupils  from  seeing 
anything  which  the  Jesuits  wish  to  hide 
from  theirs.  Our  teaching  should  be  open, 
and  the  breaking  of  the  Individual  Will, 
as  a  preparation  for  absolute  obedience, 
should  not  be  dreamed  of.  We  appeal  for  a 
"reasonable  service,"  and  if  there  be  any 
60 


DISCIPLINE 

sacrifice,  it  shall  be  a  willing  sacrifice 
such  as  the  patriot  makes  when  he  gives 
up  everything  —  family,  home,  friends, 
wealth,  work,  honors,  precious  expecta- 
tions —  to  fight  for  his  country  and  to  die, 
if  need  be,  on  the  battle-field. 

I  need  not  specify  in  detail  what  Ameri- 
can Education  should  be.  Even  were  I 
competent  to  do  so  I  should  require  a 
treatise.  But  without  making  any  pretence 
of  being  expert  I  may  at  least  empha- 
size two  defects  which  have  struck  me  as 
an  observer —  first,  the  woefully  deficient 
instruction  given  in  rudimentary  English, 
and  next,  the  equally  deficient  teaching  of 
American  history.  In  my  youth  I  studied 
both  in  France  and  in  Italy,  and  I  saw 
something  of  the  education  of  young  Ger- 
mans. The  average  French,  Italian,  or 
German  lad,  who  could  not  write  a  correct 
letter  in  his  own  language  or  give  a  clear 
statement  of  the  outlines  of  his  national 
history,  would  not  have  been  tolerated, 
much  less  would  he  have  been  passed  on 
to  the  upper  grades,  to  the  Lycees  and  the 
61 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

Universities.  By  contrast,  I  meet  every 
year  now  many  American  college  men,  not 
merely  Freshmen,  but  Juniors  and  Sen- 
iors, whose  handwriting  is  illegible,  whose 
use  of  their  native  tongue  is  preposterous, 
and  whose  knowledge  of  American  history 
is  as  incoherent  and  jumbled  as  the  in- 
gredients the  witches  in  Macbeth  tossed 
into  their  cauldron.  Now  a  knowledge  of 
these  two  subjects,  English  and  History, 
should  be  planted  so  deeply  in  every 
American  child,  that  it  would  grow  with 
his  growth  and  endure  to  the  end  of  his 
life.  More  than  that,  such  knowledge 
should  be  the  key  to  open  literature  for 
him  and  an  understanding  of  American 
principles  and  institutions. 

We  are  told  over  and  over  again  that 
the  study  of  Mathematics  or  of  Latin  and 
Greek  has  the  greatest  possible  value  for 
the  mental  discipline  which  it  supplies.  I 
should  be  the  last  to  belittle  the  value 
of  the  Classics  —  those  languages  through 
which  as  through  musical  instruments  the 
beauty  and  wisdom  and  thought  of  the 
62 


DISCIPLINE 

Greeks  and  Romans  have  been  wafted  to 
our  time  and  will  carry  their  music  and 
their  message  into  the  future  as  long  as 
receptive  souls  shall  exist  to  welcome 
them.  Mathematics,  too,  toughen  and 
clarify  the  minds  of  those  who  have  an 
instinct  for  them.  But  the  mental  disci- 
pline which  might  come  to  the  youngest 
pupils  from  English  properly  taught  and 
from  History  properly  told,  would  prepare 
them  to  profit  by  the  later  study  of  the 
Classics  and  of  Mathematics  and  it  would 
last  throughout  their  lives. 

So  I  would  urge  that  these  subjects, 
which  stand  at  the  threshold  of  Educa- 
tion, be  given  the  attention  which  they 
deserve  by  teachers  adequate  to  the  task; 
and  that  they  be  made  the  foundations  of 
a  curriculum,  rational,  illuminating,  inter- 
locking, and  elastic,  which  shall  not  only 
turn  out  graduates  of  the  Universities  who 
are  specialists  and  educated  men  as  well, 
but  shall  also  implant  the  seeds  of  Ameri- 
canism so  surely  that  whether  a  boy  has  to 
leave  school  at  fifteen,  or  eighteen,  or 
63 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLmE:  PEACE 

twenty,  he  shall  understand  the  historical 
steps  by  which  the  United  States  have 
developed,  the  principles  which  underlie 
their  existence  and  his  own. 

I  hope  that  even  at  the  expense  of  repe- 
tition, I  have  made  it  plain  that  the  first 
agency,  and  immeasurably  the  most  pow- 
erful, for  unifying  our  population  and  for 
making  America  not  only  a  hope  but  a 
fact,  is  Education.  The  education  of  Jesu- 
itry and  the  Prussian  education  each 
aimed  at  and  culminated  in  Absolutism  — 
one  ecclesiastical,  the  other  secular.  The 
transcendent  task  for  American  Democ- 
racy is  to  organize  an  equally  efficient 
system  of  education  in  behalf  of  Democ- 
racy. The  Prussian  ideal,  like  the  Jesuit, 
is  the  training  to  absolute  obedience  —  to 
a  state  of  submission  which  deprives  the 
individual  of  liberty  of  conscience,  and 
therefore  of  action.  He  responds  as  auto- 
matically to  control  from  above,  as  does 
the  electric  bell  when  you  press  the  but- 
ton. To  convert  human  beings  into  ma- 
chines is  the  aim,  and  result,  of  Jesuit  and 
64 


DISCIPUNE 

of  Prussian.  But  the  ideal  of  Democracy 
is  to  train  every  person  in  individual  lib- 
erty, to  enhance  his  value  as  a  moral 
agent,  and  so  to  discharge  intelligently  the 
citizen's  duty  which  Democracy  places 
upon  him. 

In  Colonial  days,  when  our  population 
was  more  homogeneous,  the  teaching  of 
the  public  schools  and  pioneer  colleges 
fitted  their  pupils  for  the  rather  restricted 
political  life  which  lay  before  them.  The 
general  rightness  of  the  system  into  which 
they  were  born,  was  hardly  disputed.  But 
our  public  schools  long  since  ceased  to  be 
nurseries  of  Democracy.  With  the  en- 
trance of  various  elements,  the  tendency 
has  been  to  teach  nothing  which  might 
offend  the  parents  of  the  children  of  any 
race  or  creed.  History,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  subject  through  which  the  newcomers 
ought  to  learn  how  American  Democracy 
developed,  is  reduced  to  a  formless  mush, 
without  savor  or  nourishment.  But  a 
brief,  clear,  straightforward  story  of  the 
origin  and  growth  of  our  Nation  could 
65 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

be  written,  and  should  be  taught  in  all 
schools,  public,  private,  and  parochial ;  and 
with  it  should  go  an  explanation,  adapted 
to  young  minds,  of  Democracy  and  of  our 
Constitution.  We  are  already  suffering 
grievously  from  our  ill-judged  educational 
system,  which  seems  to  assume  that  chil- 
dren should  not  be  forced,  that  their  poor 
little  minds  should  not  be  burdened  too 
early,  and  that  lenience,  intellectual  and 
moral,  should  supplant  discipline  in  deal- 
ing with  them.  In  truth,  however,  disci- 
pline should  begin  in  the  cradle,  and 
American  boys  of  fourteen  should  be  as 
well  trained  as  French  boys  and  German 
boys  of  fourteen;  for  they  have  quite  as 
much  natural  ability.  Incontestably,  the 
rudiments  of  Americanism  should  be  as 
firmly  rooted  in  American  youth  as  were 
those  of  Prussianism  in  Prussian  youth. 

A  single  generation  of  our  wrong  system 
has  resulted  in  incipient  softening  of  the 
spine  —  a  symptom  brought  to  the  sur- 
face by  the  World  War,  and  very  ominous. 

The  wonderful  response  of  the  Ameri- 
66 


DISCIPLINE 

can  Nation,  however,  to  the  call  for  prepa- 
ration for  this  War  showed  that  the 
American  spirit  was  sound  and  that  the 
latent  ability  of  the  American  people 
could  be  quickly  set  in  action.  In  a  year 
divisions  of  American  soldiers  were  on  the 
fighting  line  in  France,  and  in  eighteen 
months  two  million  of  our  men  were  help- 
ing to  destroy  the  vast  armament  of  the 
Kaiser.  I  do  not  mean  to  imply  that  an 
American,  after  six  months'  training,  will 
always  be  equal  to  a  German  who  has 
devoted  several  years  to  that  task.  But  I 
do  assert  that  nothing  the  German  Mili- 
tarists have  ever  achieved  equals  the 
American  achievement  between  April, 
1917,  and  October,  1918,  when,  with  the 
aid  of  British  transports,  they  sent  their 
armies  across  the  Atlantic,  with  food  and 
munitions  and  artillery  sufficient  for  them, 
and  constructed  a  railway  many  hundred 
miles  in  length,  and  vast  docks  and  store- 
houses, and  coordinated  all  the  parts  of 
this  colossal  enterprise.  Germans  prepared 
for  war  and  heaped  up  their  munitions 
67 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

during  forty  years  of  peace.  Comparison 
would  be  ludicrous. 

The  magic  by  which  America  accom- 
plished this  unparalleled  work  was  the 
spirit  of  Liberty.  Each  individual  knew 
that  he  counted,  and  he  responded  will- 
ingly to  the  call  for  arms,  to  the  necessity 
of  obedience,  and  to  every  whisper  of 
Duty.  The  problem  of  the  system  of  Ed- 
ucation which  I  have  urged,  will  be  to 
safeguard  this  spirit  of  Liberty  while  in- 
creasing the  recognition  and  practice  of 
Discipline  through  which  Liberty  itself  will 
be  able  to  accomplish  its  tasks  still  more 
effectually.  The  American  must  remain 
elastic,  keen,  self-reliant,  quick  to  use  his 
own  resources  or  he  will  cease  to  be  Amer- 
ican. We  want  no  Hindenburg  machines 
here  which,  in  the  form  of  human  beings, 
click  their  heels  together,  and  salute,  and 
blindly  obey  like  marionettes  whose  mo- 
tions, controlled  by  wires,  follow  the 
twitching  of  the  showman  behind  the 
scenes;  we  want  men,  free  and  morally 
responsible  men. 

68 


DISCIPLINE 

Our  education  in  Discipline  must  in- 
clude training,  not  only  of  the  mind,  but 
also  of  the  body.  We  must  recover,  after 
two  thousand  years,  that  balance  of  the 
intellectual,  the  moral,  and  of  the  physical 
without  which  neither  can  reach  its  maxi- 
mum. Every  prospective  citizen  must  be 
taught  to  defend  the  country  in  case  of 
war.  Ability  to  vote  intelligently,  to  up- 
hold Democracy  by  wise  counsel  and  up- 
right character,  will  not  avail  to  drive 
back  an  armed  invader.  The  truculent 
soldier  knows  no  argument  except  the 
sword.  We  must  be  sufficiently  prepared 
in  permanent  equipment  and  munitions 
to  repel  a  sudden  attack;  and  we  must  so 
train  the  great  mass  of  our  men,  as  the 
Swiss  do,  that  they  can  be  mobilized  at  a 
day's  notice. 

We  need  not  fear  that  rational  measures 
for  defense  will  lead  to  militarism.  The 
countries  which  have  become  victims  of 
militarism  —  Spain  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury, France  under  Louis  XIV  and  Na- 
poleon, Russia  under  Nicholas  I,  Prussia 
69 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

under  Frederick,  and  Germany  under 
William  II  —  have  had  this  in  common  — 
their  armies  were  the  personal  instrument 
of  the  sovereign,  to  be  used  by  him  for 
his  own  aggrandizement  or  that  of  his 
dynasty,  however  his  motives  may  have 
been  veiled  under  the  pretense  of  national 
necessity.  But  we  have  no  autocrat,  and 
militarist  ambitions  are  uncongenial  to 
our  people.  Unless  there  were  another 
Civil  War  here,  there  would  be  no  con- 
ceivable need  of  maintaining  huge  stand- 
ing armies :  but  as  our  Civil  War  occurred 
when  there  was  no  standing  army,  the 
guilt  for  it  could  not  be  laid  to  militarism. 
Adequate  provision  for  defense  does  not 
imply  a  vast  military  organization  for  ag- 
gression. Against  aggression  we  must  be 
prepared:  because  if  a  foreign  militarist 
Power  should  occupy  either  Canada  or 
Mexico,  we  could  not  defend  ourselves 
against  invasion.  Until  we  have  perfected 
a  system  for  guarding  ourselves,  we  shall 
owe  our  safety  to  the  existence  of  the  Brit- 
ish Fleet  —  as  we  have  owed  it  throughout 
70 


DISCIPLINE 

the  long  suspense  of  the  Atrocious  War. 
But  what  if  that  Fleet  had  suffered  disas- 
ter? Or  what  if,  in  a  new  international 
combination,  the  British  Government 
should  cool  towards  us  and  hold  its  Fleet 
in  a  state  of  academic  neutrality  which 
would  be  ruinous  to  us? 

The  future  of  the  American  Republic, 
with  which  Democracy  is  bound  up,  must 
not  be  left  to  such  a  hazard  as  the  change- 
ful temper  towards  us  of  any  foreign 
nation.  We  must  lay  down  our  system 
according  to  our  ideals,  with  the  best  wis- 
dom which  experience  and  our  observa- 
tion of  human  vicissitudes  can  teach  us. 

Rational  military  training  is  one  of  the 
essentials  of  the  preservation  of  our  Re- 
public. 

We  need  it,  first,  because  without  it  we 
should  be  crushed  if  war  came. 

We  need  it,  next,  because  in  peace  it 
will  unify  our  miscellaneous  population  at 
its  impressionable  age.  It  will  substitute 
one  language  for  the  Babel  of  polyglot 
tongues.  It  will  teach  discipline,  which, 
71 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

whether  it  be  taught  through  material 
drill  or  through  books,  is  indispensable. 
It  will  promote  physical  health,  and  abol- 
ish the  slouchy  carriage  and  shambling 
gait  common  to  Americans. 

If  Democracy  is,  as  we  believe,  the  far- 
thest goal  yet  visible,  it  is  our  duty  to  de- 
fend it  in  every  honorable  way.  Since  on 
its  preservation  peace  depends,  we  must 
preserve  Democracy  even  at  the  cost  of 
war.  Superior  virtue  does  not  excuse  its 
possessor  for  being  a  fool.  If  a  Quaker 
banker  left  his  treasure  unlocked,  burglars 
would  not  spare  it  out  of  respect  to  his 
pacifist  doctrine.  When  the  land  was  in- 
fested by  wolves  and  savages,  our  pioneer 
ancestors  went  armed:  and  so  should  we; 
most  of  all  now  at  a  time  when  wolves  and 
savages  are  still  abroad,  and  the  leaders 
of  the  pack  have  announced  that  they 
will  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than 
World  Power.  The  loss  of  our  material 
treasure,  if  they  succeeded,  would  be 
grievous;  but  the  blow  to  Democracy 
would  be  irreparable. 
72 


DISCIPLINE 

We  do  not  surrender  one  jot  of  our  be- 
lief in  the  sanctity  of  the  Individual;  we 
simply  give  each  individual  the  opportu- 
nity to  learn  for  himself  that  he  will  re- 
main stunted  unless  he  works  with  and 
for  Society,  towards  collective,  higher 
ends.  That  is  Discipline.  We  teach  him  the 
patriotism  of  Democracy,  which  regards 
it  as  a  self-evident  truth  that  every  citizen 
is  bound  to  protect  his  country.  The  serv- 
ice of  the  Democrat  is  in  the  highest  sense 
voluntary,  and  so  it  differs  totally  from 
that  of  the  conscript  under  a  militarist 
Despotism.  The  Democrat  does  his  duty 
as  an  act  of  his  own  will,  and  thereby 
proves  himself  a  moral  agent:  the  subject 
of  an  Autocrat,  or  of  the  fictitious  supreme 
State  behind  which  the  Autocrat  may  try 
to  screen  himself,  is,  and  can  be,  a  ma- 
chine only.  The  difference  is  as  funda- 
mental as  that  between  soul  and  body. 
Democracy  and  Freedom  are  inseparable 
—  two  aspects  of  the  same  soul. 

Discipline  —  Discipline !  That  is  our 
tragic  need.  Only  through  Discipline 
73 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

comes  Freedom.  Lawlessness  is  not  Lib- 
erty. The  really  free  man  is  he  who,  under- 
standing the  master  laws  of  life,  works 
with  them  so  harmoniously  that  he  has 
indeed  behind  him,  not  only  the  physical 
forces  that  move  the  sun  and  stars,  but 
the  Moral  Law  that  has  chosen  humanity 
as  the  instrument  through  which  to  reveal 
itself  on  earth.  The  discipline  of  Autoc- 
racy destroys  the  Individual,  by  requiring 
of  him  absolute  obedience.  The  discipline 
of  Democracy  should  so  develop  the  rea- 
son and  conscience  of  the  Individual  that 
he  will  serve  Democracy  willingly,  joy- 
fully, at  whatever  cost  to  himself.  The 
patriotism  which  depends  on  compulsion 
differs  completely  from  the  ideal  patriot- 
ism of  Democracy.  It  is  a  contradiction 
in  terms,  like  compulsory  love  or  compul- 
sory worship.  Without  freedom  of  choice, 
you  can  no  more  attach  moral  significance 
to  love,  worship,  patriotism,  than  to  the 
wild  play  of  lightning  or  to  the  whirling  of 
a  blizzard. 

This  quality  of  freedom  sanctifies  De- 
74 


DISCIPLINE 

mocracy.  No  doubt,  the  blind  devotion 
which  other  forms  call  out,  has  many 
noble  aspects.  The  fealty  of  the  knight  to 
his  lord,  the  clansman  to  his  chief,  has 
often  flowered  in  splendid  self-sacrifice. 
Who  has  not  thrilled  at  the  story  of  that 
spectacle  when  Empress  Maria  Theresa  — 
young,  beautiful,  beset  by  a  ruthless  and 
cunning  foe  —  Frederick  II  —  faced  the 
Hungarian  House  of  Lords,  of  whose  al- 
legiance she  was  not  certain;  and  they,  at 
the  sight  of  her,  carried  away  by  a  whirl- 
wind of  devotion  to  the  sovereign  and 
of  sympathy  for  the  distressed  woman, 
shouted,  '^Moriamo  pro  rege  nostro!" 
(We  will  die  for  our  King!) 

To  attain  American  Democracy  we 
must  lay  hold  on  Americanism.  We  must 
be  united,  in  speech  and  aim.  We  must  be 
educated.  Only  through  Education  can  we 
learn  that  Discipline  without  which  every 
system  is  as  helpless  as  a  rudderless  ship. 
So  true  is  this  that  the  natives  in  India, 
for  example,  appeal  to  the  English  Courts 
rather  than  to  their  own,  when  they  desire 
75 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

real  justice.  Entrusted  with  the  most  in- 
tricate poHtical  mechanism  yet  devised,  a 
mechanism  caUing  for  special  knowledge 
in  those  who  use  it,  we  have  taken  it 
for  granted  that  somehow  the  machine 
would  teach  the  machinist.  But  mastery 
of  chemistry  does  not  come  by  intuition; 
neither  does  Democracy. 

Have  I  made  it  plain  how  the  difficulty, 
which  the  very  idea  of  Democracy  raises, 
can  be  overcome .^^  True  Democracy  not 
only  cannot  exist  without  Liberty,  it  is  the 
actual  embodiment  of  Liberty  and  it  must 
be  upheld  by  free  Individuals.  Yet,  each 
Individual  and  the  community  must  be 
restrained  by  Discipline.  How  is  this  con- 
tradiction to  be  settled  .f^  It  is  to  be  settled 
precisely  in  the  same  way  in  which  we  set- 
tle the  problems  of  our  daily  conduct. 
Just  as  he  who  loses  his  life  shall  find  it,  so 
he,  who  of  his  own  choice  gives  up  his 
Will,  shall  find  it.  He  sees  that  submission 
to  moral  laws  does  not  enslave  him  but 
liberates  him.  The  man  who  following  his 
appetites  disobeys  the  laws  of  health,  does 
76 


DISCIPLINE 

not  thereby  prove  himself  of  superior  free- 
dom, but  makes  himself  the  slave  of  vices, 
foul  habits,  and  disease. 

Since  Democracy  is  the  highest  form  of 
government  by  which  peoples  can  manage 
their  collective  affairs,  we  must  learn, 
obey,  and  teach  its  laws,  resting  sure  that 
in  obeying  we  become  better  Democrats, 
and,  therefore,  freer  men.  We  shall  give  a 
willing  service.  The  voluntary  accepting 
of  the  restraint  of  laws,  the  merging  of  our 
individual  Will  in  the  larger  Will,  solves 
the  dilemma.  And  when  you  examine 
closely,  you  discover  that  the  laws  which 
make  a  good  Democrat  are  the  laws  which 
make  a  good  man.  For  the  concerns  of 
Democracy  are  more  than  political,  they 
are  moral. 

So  let  us  chant  the  Hymn  of  Discipline 
—  the  training  which  gives  swiftness  and 
strength  to  the  runner  and  sureness  of  aim 
to  the  marksman;  the  self-restraint  which 
brings  self-mastery;  the  knowledge  and 
obedience  which  enable  man  to  make  the 
forces  of  nature  work  for  him;  the  devo- 
77 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

tion  to  spiritual  laws  which  lifts  his  soul 
to  its  full  stature  and  makes  him  a  citizen 
of  the  Eternal.  Democracy  implies  Disci- 
pline. What  Dante  said  of  the  Blessed  in 
Heaven  is  equally  true  of  us  on  earth: 

"E  la  sua  volontate  e  nostra  pace." 
(And  the  Divine  Will  is  our  peace.) 


Ill 

PEACE 

How  beautiful  upon  the  mountains  are  the  feet  of 
him  that  bringeth  good  tidings,  that  publisheth 
peace. 

Peace?  What  do  you  mean  by  Peace?  Is 
it  the  desire  of  the  weary,  the  hope  of  the 
heavy-hearted  and  bereaved?  The  dream 
of  those  who,  baffled  and  misled  and  de- 
jected by  the  strife  and  tumult  of  this 
world,  look  forward  to  another  which  shall 
redress  the  wrongs  of  this?  Political  peace, 
the  opposite  of  War,  the  state  which 
quenches  the  flames  of  War,  we  all  know 
and  understand.  But  Peace  as  an  ideal  of 
the  soul,  grows  more  and  more  remote.  In 
most  religions  it  seems  to  be  nearly  identi- 
cal with  the  thought  of  the  perpetuation 
hereafter  of  the  dearest  pleasures  —  in- 
cluding the  pleasures  of  the  affections  and 
of  worship  —  which  men  have.  We  learn 
very  early  that  disappointments  and 
cares,  the  commonplace  lot  of  everybody, 
79 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

whether  young  or  old,  millionaire  or  mill- 
hand,  prevent  any  of  us  from  enjoying  a 
life  of  Peace;  but  we  never  quite  accept 
our  doom.  We  feel  instinctively  that  were 
this  or  that  changed,  a  trifle  perhaps,  had 
we  a  little  more  money,  or  better  health, 
or  a  more  fortunate  position,  we  might 
attain  to  Peace. 

During  the  last  half -century,  however, 
the  men  of  science  have  tried  to  persuade 
us  that  there  is  and  can  be  no  Peace  in  the 
organic  world,  that  the  law  of  organic  life 
is  an  incessant  struggle  for  the  survival 
of  the  fittest.  The  German  doctrinaires, 
with  the  characteristic  narrowness  which 
makes  them  doctrinaires,  seized  upon  this 
so-called  law,  transferred  it  from  the  ani- 
mal world  to  man,  and  declared  it  to  be 
the  key  to  human  history.  From  it  they 
deduced  their  monstrous  assertions  that 
might  makes  right,  that  the  strong  shall 
enslave  or  exterminate  the  weak,  and  that 
War,  not  Peace,  should  be  the  normal 
state  of  man.  I  will  not  stop  to  refute  this 
falsehood,  which,  if  it  were  true,  would 
80 


PEACE 

make  annihilation  preferable,  to  most  of 
us,  to  any  life  on  earth  conceivable  under 
this  rule  of  the  shambles.  I  refer  you  to  the 
brief  and  beautifully  clear  essay  in  which 
Dr.  George  W.  Crile  has  once  for  all  ex- 
posed the  damnable  German  fallacy.^ 

Since  human  beings  are  moral  beings,  a 
premiss  which  the  German  denies,  we  de- 
clare that  right  is  right,  and  that  to  steal 
one's  neighbor,  or  his  property,  or  his  land, 
and  to  kill  him  and  all  his  tribe,  is  wrong. 
I  shall  endeavor  in  the  present  lecture  to 
state  some  of  the  existing  obstacles  to  in- 
ternal Peace  in  the  United  States,  and  to 
suggest  how  they  may  be  removed. 

In  the  previous  discussion  I  have  laid 
before  you,  by  hints  rather  than  by  formal 
demonstration,  what  seem  to  me  to  be  the 
essentials  of  Democracy.  I  asked  you  to 
regard  Freedom  as  the  very  breath  of  its 
life,  and  to  consider  how  the  inviolability 
of  the  Individual,  which  Freedom  de- 
mands, can  be  reconciled  with  the  ideal  of 

^  George  W.  Crile:  The  Fallacy  of  the  German  State 
Philosophy.  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  Garden  City,  1918. 

81 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

subordinating  the  Individual  to  the  com- 
mon good  which  the  Democratic  State  de- 
mands. The  true  Democrat  shall  have 
obedience  without  servility  or  self-inter- 
est; zeal  without  superstition. 

Civilization  begins,  as  I  measure,  when 
the  idea  of  the  Family  emerges  from 
among  the  promiscuous  relationships  of 
barbarians.  The  Family  reveals  how  both 
sexes,  and  the  young  and  old  of  different 
generations,  are  naturally  bound  together 
by  the  simplest  but  strongest  ties  in  a 
bond  of  affection,  health,  and  peace;  and  I 
believe  that  no  State  can  be  healthy  and 
permanent  unless  it  is  based  on  the  funda- 
mental good- will  and  justice  which  unite 
the  ideal  Family.  To  have  a  common  pur- 
pose, a  common  standard  of  conduct  —  in 
a  word,  a  real  harmony  —  which  does  not 
preclude  different  tastes  or  different  opin- 
ions, are  also  necessary  to  the  Family. 
Nor  can  the  State  do  without  them. 

Now  look,  for  a  moment,  at  what  the 
recent  decades  have  brought  us.  The  sur- 
vey is  of  things  so  familiar,  that  we  have 
82 


PEACE 

mostly  lost  our  sense  of  their  signifi- 
cance. 

I  pass  over  the  amazing  achievement  of 
binding  our  country  together  by  railroads 
and  telegraphs,  of  clearing,  settling,  and 
civilizing  it  —  that  seems  now  not  a  sub- 
ject for  epics,  but  a  mere  matter  of  course, 
like  housekeeping.  But  consider  the  colos- 
sal questions  —  political  reconstruction 
after  the  Civil  War  —  economic  and  fi- 
nancial readjustment  —  the  dislocating 
and  demoralizing  effect  of  sudden  and  fab- 
ulous wealth  —  immigration  —  industri- 
alism, tending  to  degrade  workers  to  the 
status  of  the  machines  they  serve  —  the 
dividing  line  for  all  classes  of  a  material 
prosperity :  these  are  the  questions  — • 
stupendous  tasks,  rather,  which  have 
challenged  our  newly  welded  American 
Democracy.  Any  one  of  them  would  have 
taxed  the  wisdom  of  a  generation,  and  its 
strength. 

Hercules  surmounted  his  labors  singly. 
Suppose  that,  while  he  was  cleansing  the 
Augean  stables,  he  had  also  been  forced 
83 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

to  repel  the  combined  attack  of  the  Ler- 
nean  Hydra,  the  Nemean  Lion,  and  the 
StymphaUan  Birds?  What  victory  could 
he  have  hoped  for?  And  yet  during  the  last 
fifty  years  our  Democracy  has  had  to  battle 
against  an  equivalent  coalition  of  enemies. 

Many  of  these  problems  —  Industrial- 
ism, for  instance  —  being  common  symp- 
toms of  the  age,  have  wound  their  coils 
round  other  countries:  but  take  one 
which  peculiarly  affects  the  United 
States  —  take  Immigration. 

In  1860  the  population  of  this  country 
was  thirty-one  millions  and  a  half.  During 
the  fifty  years  up  to  1910  we  received 
twenty-three  million  immigrants  —  or 
three  quarters  of  the  entire  population  in 
1860:  and,  except  for  a  small  fraction 
made  up  of  English,  Scotch,  and  Scandi- 
navians, these  strangers  came  from  lands 
where  Despotism,  mild  or  harsh,  still  pre- 
vailed, or  had  only  lately  been  modified. 
They  knew  neither  the  language  nor  the 
traditions  of  America.  They  counted 
many  illiterates.  They  brought  their  own 
84 


PEACE 

dialects  and  customs,  their  racial  creeds 
and  antipathies.  Year  by  year  the  stream 
flowed  from  lower  economic  and  social 
levels,  until  it  was  chiefly  swollen  by  the 
proletarians  of  Europe  and  Western  Asia. 

Once  here,  they  naturally  herded  to- 
gether, thereby  rendering  it  more  difficult 
to  Americanize  them;  and,  un-American- 
ized  though  they  were,  we  gave  them  the 
ballot,  which  they  were  as  unprepared  to 
use  as  five-year-old  children  would  be  to 
handle  loaded  revolvers. 

From  such  a  spectacle,  critics,  native 
and  foreign,  argue  the  failure  of  Democ- 
racy. In  truth,  however,  the  task  of  re- 
ceiving twenty-three  million  aliens  in  fifty 
years,  and  of  establishing  them  in  living 
relations,  even  if  they  were  not  well  assim- 
ilated, is  new  in  history.  Until  Despotism, 
limited  Monarchy,  or  Oligarchy  is  put  to 
this  test,  and  succeeds  better  than  we 
have  done,  it  wfll  be  premature  to  charge 
our  partial  failure  to  Democracy. 

But  history  shows  us  that  governments 
which  look  down  on  our   "Democratic 
85 


DEMOCKACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

inefficiency,"  have  been  wholly  incapable 
of  assimilating  aliens.  Take  Despotic 
Prussia,  for  instance,  the  most  rigid  and 
externally  efficient  governmental  machine 
the  world  has  known.  If  twenty-three  mil- 
lion foreigners  had  settled  in  Prussia  be- 
tween 1860  and  1910,  they  would  remain 
as  foreign  today  as  the  peoples  that  Prus- 
sia finally  brought  under  her  rule.  After 
one  hundred  and  forty  years  the  Poles 
remain  Poles;  after  nearly  half  a  century 
the  people  of  Alsace-Lorraine  are  French. 
Either  servitude  or  extinction  was  the 
Prussian  substitute  for  assimilation.  But 
extermination  does  not  solve  the  problem. 
The  mention  of  Prussia  calls  up  the 
radical  difference  between  her  growth  and 
that  of  the  United  States.  No  one  has  ever 
voluntarily  migrated  to  Prussia  since  the 
kingdom  was  proclaimed  in  1701.  Every 
addition,  in  territory  and  population,  has 
been  made  by  the  sword;  and  by  the 
sword  she  has  still  striven  to  subdue  the 
foreigners  she  has  conquered.  The  millions 
and  tens  of  millions  who  have  flocked  to 
86 


PEACE 

the  United  States,  on  the  contrary,  have 
come  wilHngly,  eagerly,  and  often  franti- 
cally, in  their  desire  to  escape  from  the 
perils  or  burdens  of  the  countries  of  their 
origin.  From  that  fact  I  deduce  that 
American  Democracy,  slipshod  though  it 
has  been,  possessed  certain  attractions 
that  Prussian  Autocracy  did  not. 

Mere  attractiveness,  however,  never 
saved  man  or  woman  from  the  wolves. 
Our  hospitality,  which  has  been  by  no 
means  disinterested,  because  our  indus- 
trialists have  welcomed  the  foreign  prole- 
tariat in  order  to  exploit  it  in  the  form  of 
cheap  labor,  has  resulted  in  creating  here 
a  vast,  polyglot  population,  which  tends 
more  and  more  to  become  un-American. 
We  lack  a  unifying  bond.  The  only  prin- 
ciple which  seems  to  actuate  Croesus  and 
Choreman  alike  is,  "Every  one  for  himself 
and  the  Devil  take  the  hindmost."  But 
union  cannot  be  based  on  individual  self- 
ishness. Each  individual  must  give  up  a 
part  of  himself  for  the  benefit  of  all  — 
must  recognize  that  the  good  of  all  has  a 
87 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

claim  upon  him  superior  to  any  personal 
concern  —  before  there  can  be  union.  The 
ideal  of  the  Family  foreshadows  the  ideal 
of  the  State.  Just  as  nobody  can  live  for 
himself  alone,  so  each  must  give  abun- 
dantly of  himself  wherever  he  has  joint 
interest  with  his  fellows.  Only  when  we 
give  ourselves  do  we  really  share  in  the 
fruits  of  our  gift.  We  know  that  the  Fam- 
ily withers,  if  selfishness,  instead  of  love 
and  concord,  prevail.  Much  more  is  this 
true  in  the  case  of  the  State :  for  the  State 
lacks  the  natural  magnets  which  draw  to- 
gether normal  members  to  the  Family. 

I  dwell  upon  the  problem  of  the  foreign- 
born,  because  it  adds  greatly  to  the  diflS- 
culty  of  perfecting  our  Democracy;  and 
from  being  a  diflSculty  it  has  grown  to  be  a 
menace.  You  cannot  go  on  pouring  dirty 
water  into  a  jar  of  milk  and  have  the  com- 
bination remain  clean  milk.  But  our 
troubles  do  not  spring  only  from  immigra- 
tion. Even  in  the  earlier  days,  when  the 
newcomers  were  still  too  few  to  be  a  dis- 
turbing element,  our  forerunners  showed 
88 


PEACE 

signs  of  that  slackness  which  is  supposed 
to  be  inseparable  from  Democracy.  And 
which  of  us,  though  he  can  trace  his 
American  ancestry  back  to  the  Mayflower, 
can  honestly  say  that  he  has  done  his  full 
duty  by  the  Republic? 

When  at  last  the  aliens  came  in  swarms, 
the  native  Americans  made  almost  no 
effort  to  Americanize  them,  but  used  their 
labor  and  in  return  allowed  them,  as  the 
phrase  goes,  to  run  our  politics.  As  long 
as  the  so-called  "best  men"  themselves 
could  go  on  making  fortunes,  it  was 
cheaper  to  pay  for  the  waste  entailed  by 
unskilled  or  tainted  government,  and  even 
to  compound  with  "strike"  legislation, 
than  to  give  their  time  to  public  affairs. 
They  excused  themselves  on  the  plea  that 
"politics  were  too  dirty  for  a  good  man  to 
go  into."  I  always  distrust  the  virtue  of 
those  who  claim  to  be  too  good  to  grapple 
with  the  evil  which  corrupts  the  world. 
The  greater  the  evil,  the  greater  the  need 
of  good  men  to  fight  it.  One  of  the  best 
men  I  know  has  devoted  himself  to  letting 
89 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

in  mercy,  kindness,  self-respect,  and  a 
sense  of  human  fellowship  and  loyalty  to 
the  prisoners  at  Sing-Sing  and  at  the 
Portsmouth  Navy  Yard  Prison.  He  is  not 
too  good  to  shrink  from  the  task  of  prov- 
ing that  you  cannot  make  honest  men  of 
criminals  by  applying  to  them  an  inhuman 
system  which  would  make  criminals  of 
honest  men. 

Our  merchants  and  other  leading  men 
in  the  cities  used  also  to  reassure  them- 
selves that  they  stood  ready,  if  ever  polit- 
ical corruption  became  too  bad,  to  take  a 
hand  themselves  and  turn  the  rascals  out. 
This  is  rather  a  simple  form  of  self-delu- 
sion; for  any  one  who  has  watched  politics 
knows  that  amateur  reformers  cannot  dart 
in  at  a  moment's  notice  and  remedy  evils. 
If  an  orchestra  ran  down  so  that  its  mem- 
bers neither  played  well  individually  nor 
obeyed  their  conductor,  what  should  we 
think  of  "best  citizens"  who  should  say: 
"Don't  worry,  if  it  really  becomes  intol- 
erable we  will  take  the  places  of  the  vio- 
linists ourselves." 

90 


PEACE 

I  am  not  excusing  the  evils  in  our  Amer- 
ican public  life;  I  am  only  suggesting  that, 
before  we  can  remedy  them,  we  must  un- 
derstand their  cause,  and  that  we  must 
not  argue  from  them  that  Democracy  is  a 
failure.  Not  until  we  realize  how  far  our 
troubles  arise  from  the  mixed  ingredients 
of  our  population  shall  we  take  the  road 
towards  the  remedy,  which  is,  also,  the 
road  to  true  Democracy  and  Peace.  Op- 
ponents argue  against  Democracy  that 
very  few  are  capable  of  wielding  it,  but 
this  is  true  also  of  children  and  minors  in 
any  society:  you  don't  kill  them  or  im- 
prison them,  you  teach  and  wait.  Ger- 
mans have  shown  what  education  can  do. 
They  educated  for  bad,  why  should  not 
we  for  good  ? 

Consider  for  a  moment  the  notorious 
contempt  for  law  in  this  country.  Each 
immigrant  brings  with  him  the  notion  of 
law  that  he  had  in  his  native  land.  Usu- 
ally, as  he  migrated  to  escape  burden- 
some or  unjust  laws,  so  he  instinctively 
regards  law  ii^  general  as  his  enemy. 
91 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

Landing  here,  and  not  finding  either  the 
laws  he  winced  under  at  home  or  any 
symbol  of  the  enforcement  of  the  laws,  he 
concludes  that  this  is  in  truth  the  Lawless 
Land,  which  he  mistakes  for  the  Land  of 
Freedom.  He  may  wander  through  our 
large  cities  for  hours  and,  except  at 
crowded  street-crossings,  he  may  never 
see  a  policeman,  to  him  the  living  symbol 
of  the  law.  In  the  country,  since  he  meets 
no  mounted  rural  police,  as  in  Central 
Europe,  and  no  alert  carbineers,  as  in 
Italy,  his  natural  inference  is  that  there 
is  nobody  to  prevent  him  from  doing 
what  he  likes  —  and  he  often  does  it. 

For  twenty  immigrants  from  twenty 
different  countries  to  come,  each  with  his 
own  notion  of  law,  is  confusing  enough: 
but  how  is  any  one  of  them  to  acquire  re- 
spect for  our  American  laws,  when  he 
finds  that  there  are  as  many  varieties  of 
these  as  there  are  States  in  the  Union  .'^ 
And  besides  the  State  laws,  there  are  the 
general  national  laws  and  the  municipal 
and  local  liaws.  Take  the  most  important 
82 


PEACE 

institution  of  all  —  matrimony :  how  is 
reverence  for  it  to  be  inculcated  under  the 
existing  contradictions  and  anomalies?  A 
man  who  would  be  guilty  of  bigamy  if  he 
married  in  New  York  City  needs  only  to 
cross  the  ferry  to  Hoboken  with  his  com- 
panion; he  marries  and  returns  in  an  hour 
to  New  York  with  his  lawful  wife.  This  is 
as  absurd  as  if  burglary  on  one  side  of  the 
street  were  punished  as  a  crime  and  not 
on  the  other. 

Small  wonder  that  the  immigrant  con- 
cludes that  there  is  nothing  binding  in  a 
law,  or  that  he  listens  to  incendiaries  who 
tell  him  that  laws  are  the  device  by  which 
the  powerful  oppress  the  weak.  The  out- 
rageous delays  in  our  court  procedure,  the 
costliness  of  justice,  and  the  endless  chain 
of  appeals  and  retrials  based  on  legal 
quibbles,  can  but  confirm  the  alien  in  the 
belief  that  the  first  prerequisite  of  an 
American  is  to  be  a  law  unto  himself.  If 
he  comes  from  a  country  where  the  police 
is  the  tool  of  a  tyrannical  and  cruel  gov- 
ernment, he  will  regard  the  policeman  as 
93 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

his  natural  enemy,  and  not  as  his  protec- 
tor, as  has  long  been  the  Anglo-Saxon  at- 
titude. Our  assumption  is  that  the  police 
exist  to  protect  the  innocent,  not  the 
guilty. 

When  the  immigrants  collect  in  colo- 
nies, they  perpetuate  in  their  relations 
with  each  other  the  customs  they  and 
their  ancestors  lived  under  abroad.  This 
inevitably  generates  a  tribal  loyalty, 
which  eyes  the  other  tribal  groups  with 
suspicion  if  not  with  hostility,  and  regards 
the  protection  of  its  own  members,  right 
or  wrong,  as  its  first  care.  How  far  this  can 
be  carried  appeared  in  the  case  of  Jack  the 
Ripper,  whose  crimes  horrified  the  world. 
The  London  police  discovered  that  he  was 
a  degenerate  Pole,  but  they  could  not 
catch  him  because  his  fellow  Poles  se- 
creted him.^  This  is  an  extreme  example; 

^  "The  conclusion  we  [London  Criminal  Investiga- 
tion Department]  came  to  was  that  he  [Jack  the  Ripper] 
and  his  people  were  certain  low-class  Polish  Jews :  for  it 
is  a  remarkable  fact  that  people  of  that  class  in  the  East 
End  wUl  not  give  up  one  of  their  number  to  Gentile 
justice."  Sir  Robert  Anderson:  The  Lighter  Side  of  my 
Official  Life,  pp.  137,  138.   London,  1911. 

94 


PEACE 

but  a  similar  spirit  of  tribal  fanatical  de- 
votion exists  in  our  cities  and  towns  which, 
like  London,  have  large  masses  of  undi- 
gested foreign  colonies  to  deal  with.  Were 
this  tendency  to  continue  unchecked,  the 
United  States  will  be  peopled  before  the 
end  of  our  century  by  a  dozen  or  twenty 
clans,  each  speaking  its  own  language  and 
practising  its  own  laws,  deprived  of  any 
common  unifying  medium.  Without  un- 
ion, there  cannot  be  equality.  The  strong- 
est of  these  tribes  will  dominate  the  others; 
or,  if  no  one  be  strong  enough  to  dominate 
singly,  it  will  form  a  league  to  share  the 
dominion.  Then  there  will  be  reenacted 
here  the  tragedy  of  racial  feuds,  dynastic 
ambitions,  religious  antipathies,  and  com- 
mercial envies  which  have  made  Europe 
a  slaughter-house  for  the  past  thousand 
years. 

I  dwell  upon  the  problem  of  the  lower 
grade  of  immigrants,  because  it  is  certain 
that  if  American  Democracy  cannot  find 
salvation  for  them  it  will  cease  to  be  a  De- 
mocracy. But  every  class  needs  to  be  de- 
95 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

mocratized.  We  have  all  fallen  into  the 
habit  of  taking  our  country  for  granted. 
Do  you  take  your  mother  for  granted, 
leaving  her  to  shift  for  herself  without  any 
loving  sign  from  you?  When  some  espe- 
cially rank  instance  of  political  corruption 
startles  us,  we  try  to  reassure  ourselves, 
as  I  have  just  said,  with  the  thought  that, 
if  things  become  intolerable,  the  best 
minds  in  the  country  —  now  busy  in  run- 
ning vast  financial  enterprises  or  in  the 
professions  —  will  turn  aside  and  save  the 
State.  Nothing  could  be  more  fatuous. 

Recently,  this  War  has  revealed  that  a 
certain  foreign  element  —  the  German  — 
has  secretly  plotted  for  a  score  of  years  to 
control  this  country  in  the  interest  of  a 
European  monarch,  to  wit,  the  Emperor 
of  Germany.  The  promoters  of  this  con- 
spiracy banked  on  the  general  theory  that 
Democracies  were  too  incompetent  ever  to 
be  a  match  for  an  Autocracy  rigidly  organ- 
ized on  militarist  principles.  Our  happy- 
go-lucky  ways  seemed  to  denote  not 
merely  inefiiciency,  but  that  loosening  of 
96 


PEACE 

the  sinews  which  forebodes  death.  They 
counted  also  on  the  racial  diversity  of 
our  population  to  increase  the  feebleness 
which,  they  taught,  is  inseparable  from 
Democracy.  They  believed  so  firmly  that 
we  Americans  set  dollars  above  every- 
thing else,  that  they  assumed  that  we 
would  not  long  resent  it  if  by  Prussianiz- 
ing our  country  they  swelled  our  fortunes. 
The  insolence  of  this  insinuation  appears, 
when  we  discover  that  the  Germans 
plunged  the  world  into  war  —  a  war  which 
has  already  cost  ten  million  lives  and  in- 
calculable misery  and  devastation  —  for 
the  sake  of  increasing  their  own  individual 
wealth  and  that  of  their  Sovereign  and 
Empire.  The  Americans  are  hard-headed 
and  practical,  and  they  know  how  to  make 
money,  but  they  are  idealists.  I  defy  any 
German  apologist  to  cite  a  single  example 
of  public  idealism  or  international  liberal- 
ism and  generosity  that  can  be  traced  to 
Prussian  origin,  since  the  boorish  Freder- 
ick of  Brandenburg  became  the  first  King 
of  Prussia. 

97 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

Without  discussing  the  causes  or  issues 
of  the  Atrocious  War,  I  urge  you  to  con- 
sider what  the  existence  of  the  Pro-Ger- 
man conspiracy  here  meant.  It  was  a  chal- 
lenge to  American  Democracy;  a  menace 
to  our  American  Union.  Foreigners  come 
over  here  ostensibly  to  escape  from  evil 
conditions  at  home  and  to  enjoy  the  pro- 
tection and  privileges  of  our  institutions. 
To  make  their  treachery  more  Judas-like, 
the  Germans  even  enrolled  themselves 
as  American  citizens.  The  challenge  was 
given:  we  accepted  it;  for  any  people 
which  submits  to  such  reptilian  attacks 
cannot  live  honored  and  does  not  deserve 
to  live  free. 

After  stamping  out  sedition  and  mak- 
ing odious  all  who  directly  or  indirectly 
abetted  it,  our  first  duty  is  to  Americanize 
the  United  States  so  thoroughly  that  no 
foreign  plotters  shall  ever  again  dare  to 
burrow  here.  The  duty  of  Americanizing 
—  as  I  have  said  —  we  ought  long  ago  to 
have  discharged :  now,  we  cannot  shirk  it. 
And  as  fast  as  we  Americanize  our  poly- 
98 


PEACE 

glot  people,  we  shall  fortify  Democracy  in 
the  United  States:  for  American  ideals 
and  Democracy,  properly  interpreted,  are 
one.  Just  as  far  as  we  have  drifted  away 
from  our  x\mericanism  we  have  aban- 
doned Democracy. 

What  must  we  do.^*  Without  attempting 
to  elaborate  here  the  details  of  the  proc- 
ess, I  will  suggest  the  general  principles 
which  must  govern  it. 

First,  we  must  insist  on  a  uniform  lan- 
guage, and  that  language  will  necessarily 
be  English.  The  attempt  to  perpetuate  the 
original  speech  or  dialect  of  the  thirty  or 
forty  races  and  tribes  that  have  immi- 
grated to  the  United  States  is  an  attempt 
against  our  national  union.  The  children 
of  immigrants  ought  all  to  use  English  as 
their  native  tongue:  that  is  the  lingua 
franca  which  will  open  communications 
for  them  in  every  part  of  the  country  from 
Tampa  to  Tacoma.  Some  will  plead  that 
the  immigrants  should  preserve  their  na- 
tive language  as  a  matter  of  sentiment  — 
that  if  it  is  lost,  their  racial  traits  and  tra- 
99 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

ditions,  their  memories  of  the  men  of 
genius  and  of  the  heroes  in  whom  they 
have  gloried,  will  be  rubbed  off  and  for- 
gotten. Sentiment  is  not  to  be  lightly 
brushed  away.  But  there  is  false  senti- 
ment as  well  as  true;  and  an  ounce  of  false 
sentiment  often  works  more  damage  than 
a  pound  of  true  sentiment  can  repair. 
Every  foreigner  who  comes  to  make  this 
his  country,  and  expects  that  it  will  be 
home  and  country  for  his  descendants  as 
far  as  he  can  foresee,  must  put  off  the 
sentiment  for  Europe  or  Asia  and  take  on 
the  sentiment  for  America.  He  must  turn 
from  the  Past  and  dwell  in  the  Present 
and  the  Future.  Men  and  institutions  and 
tribes  that  persist  in  facing  backward  are 
doomed  to  be  left  behind.  To  be  at  your 
best  Today,  you  must  use  all  the  unex- 
hausted resources  of  Today.  As  an  Ameri- 
can you  will  neither  practise  nor  tolerate 
a  divided  allegiance.  Our  Congress  must 
at  once  refuse  to  naturalize  the  immi- 
grants from  any  country  which  allows 
them  to  keep  their  citizenship  at  home, 
100 


PEACE 

while  they  pretend  to  abjure  their  alle- 
giance to  their  home,  government,  and 
sovereign  and  to  be  loyal  citizens  of  the 
United  States.  This  double  shuffle  of  de- 
ceit was  appropriately  invented  in  Ger- 
many, and  we  have  seen  how  efficaciously  it 
enabled  the  German  plotters  to  work  here. 

The  aim  of  the  Italian  here  should  be, 
therefore,  not  to  remain  as  much  of  an 
Italian  as  he  can,  but  to  become  an  Amer- 
ican. His  Italian  heredity  will  not  be  lost, 
but  it  will  enrich,  and  be  enriched  by,  its 
new  Americanism.  And  so  of  the  Scandi- 
navian and  the  Czech  and  the  Syrian,  and 
of  every  other  element.  Thorough  Ameri- 
canization, enthusiastic  and  without  men- 
tal reservations,  is  the  only  condition 
under  which  each  element  can  attain  its 
highest  development  here  and  contribute 
its  share  towards  making  the  whole  better. 
For  the  prosperity  of  the  part  increases  in 
direct  ratio  to  the  prosperity  of  the  whole. 

If  we  needed  other  proof  of  this  we 
should  find  it  in  the  fact  that  the  complete 
Americanization  of  the  parts  is  precisely 
101 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

what  the  enemies  of  our  Democracy  most 
fear  and  most  antagonize.  The  late  Hugo 
Munsterberg,  the  earliest  of  the  Prussian 
propagandists  here,  who  was  consistently 
specious  and  sophistical,  after  he  suddenly 
changed  twenty  years  ago  from  a  vehe- 
ment Socialist  to  an  abject  Kaiserite, 
preached  everywhere,  after  the  beginning 
of  the  War,  that  the  foreign  groups  ought 
not  to  give  up  their  hyphen,  ought  not  to 
merge  in  the  larger  union  of  Americanism, 
but  should  keep  each  its  native  traits  and 
insist  on  having  its  ideals  incorporated 
into  the  life  and  government  of  the  coun- 
try. Try  to  visualize  this  suggestion. 
What  sort  of  a  governmental  system  could 
be  patched  up  with  pieces  of  Prussian 
Military  Despotism;  Austrian,  Russian, 
Turkish  Autocracy;  French  centralized 
Democracy;  Italian  limited  Monarchy  — 
and  all  the  rest.^^  A  combination  of  wheel- 
barrow, motor  car,  dray,  bicycle,  hay- 
rigging,  baby  carriage,  and  the  One  Hoss 
Shay  after  its  collapse,  could  not  be  more 
absurd  or  more  incapable  of  motion. 
102 


PEACE 

Such  a  suggestion  is  made,  of  course, 
with  the  expectation  that,  as  the  German 
hyphenates  were  the  best  organized  for 
treasonable  non-American  ends,  so  by 
keeping  the  other  foreign  elements  sepa- 
rate and  mutually  distrustful,  the  Ger- 
mans could  the  more  easily  control  them 
and  move  on  to  control  the  country. 
Quite  logically,  the  national  organization 
of  German  hyphenates  —  now  happily 
disbanded  by  order  of  Congress  —  de- 
manded that  the  German  language  should 
be  taught  in  the  public  schools  and  that 
the  German  holidays  and  heroes  should  be 
celebrated,  and  quite  logically  it  proposed 
to  consolidate  the  German  voters,  so  that 
they  should  support  only  candidates 
pledged  to  uphold  German  plans. 

Equally  disingenuous  was  another  Prus- 
sian professor —  who  had  been  strategically 
planted  in  one  of  our  great  universities 
long  ago  and  was  the  unenviable  possessor 
of  an  amphibious  conscience  —  who  told 
us  that  we  must  stop  thinking  of  the 
United  States  as  "New  England,"  and 
103 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

must  think  of  it  as  "New  Europe."  If  this 
person  were  honest,  he  would  discover  by 
inquiry  of  natives  of  Missouri,  or  Virginia 
or  Louisiana,  or  California  or  Kentucky, 
or  New  York  or  Pennsylvania  or  Okla- 
homa —  or  thirty  other  States  —  whether 
they  regard  themselves  as  New  England- 
ers.  But  such  an  assertion  is  too  patently 
specious  to  fool  an  American,  for  we  Amer- 
icans know  that  before  the  Revolution  the 
Colonies  comprised  several  nationalities 
—  English  of  one  type  in  New  England, 
of  another  type  in  Virginia,  Dutch  in  New 
York,  Germans  in  Pennsylvania,  Swedes 
in  New  Jersey,  Scotch  in  Georgia,  and 
French  Huguenots  sprinkled  in  several 
sections;  and  that  these  adopted,  without 
compulsion  or  even  question,  English  as 
their  common  language.  We  know,  too, 
that  when  the  founders  of  the  Republic 
debated  what  form  of  government  to  es- 
tablish, they  considered  very  carefully 
other  examples  besides  the  English.  They 
studied  ancient  Greece  and  Rome;  they 
examined  the  medieval  Italian  Republics; 
104 


PEACE 

they  took  counsel  of  Grotius,  the  profound 
Dutchman,  and  of  Montesquieu,  the  lucid 
and  synthetic  Frenchman.  If  they  con- 
sulted no  German,  it  was  because  the  Ger- 
mans had  never  advanced,  either  in  their 
theories  or  their  practice,  beyond  the  con- 
ception of  Feudal  Despotism.  But  the 
Colonists,  of  whatever  tribe,  believed  in 
the  Individual,  and  in  his  inalienable  right 
to  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happi- 
ness. This  English  tradition,  the  ideal 
which  served  as  a  clue  to  the  labyrinth  of 
English  history,  dominated  the  framers  of 
the  American  Constitution  —  not  because 
it  was  English,  but  because,  by  a  natural 
evolution,  it  postulated  the  Freedom  and 
Democracy  which  they  regarded  as  indis- 
pensable to  the  attainment  of  the  highest 
good  for  the  State  and  for  the  Citizen. 

To  suggest  that  the  Colonists  who  had 
barely  succeeded,  with  French  aid,  after 
seven  years  of  war,  in  wresting  themselves 
from  English  rule,  adopted  English  gov- 
ernmental theories  simply  because  they 
were  English,  is  comic  beyond  precedent. 
105 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

Equally  slyly  equivocal  is  the  propa- 
ganda that,  while  it  may  be  admitted  that 
the  English  language  and  Democracy  did 
well  enough  during  the  first  century  of  the 
Republic,  when  the  population  was  largely 
British,  now,  when  it  numbers  many  mil- 
lions from  Continental  Europe,  the  Eng- 
lish monopoly  should  cease,  and  a  stand- 
ard acceptable  to  the  Continentals  should 
take  its  place.  As  one  of  the  preachers 
of  this  sophistry  puts  it,  in  substance: 
"There  are  no  Americans;  there  are  Eng- 
lish-Americans, German-Americans,  Ital- 
ian-Americans —  and  so  on.  We  Germans 
are  now  going  to  Germanize  America,  just 
as  the  English  earlier  Anglicized  it." 

Shall  we  wonder  at  the  impudence  of 
such  a  perversion  of  fact,  or  smile  at  the 
ludicrous  suggestion,  or  pity  the  poor 
muddled  brain  that  harbored  it? 

The  absolute  refutation  of  this  sophis- 
try would  be  given  if  we  asked  the  immi- 
grants from  Continental  Europe  whether 
they  came  here  in  search  of  Prussianized 
conditions,  and  whether,  after  making 
106 


PEACE 

their  home  here,  they  desired  to  exchange 
American  Democracy,  imperfect  though 
it  be,  for  Prussian  Autocracy,  perfect  as 
it  apparently  was.  What  would  Finns  and 
Czechs,  Danes,  Swedes,  Greeks,  Dutch, 
Sicilians,  Irish,  Scotch,  French,  Spaniards, 
and  Portuguese  reply?  What  would  three 
fourths  of  the  Germans  themselves  reply? 
And  what  sort  of  logic  would  the  other 
fourth  use  in  order  to  persuade  us  that 
they  were  sincere  in  wishing  to  establish 
in  the  United  States  the  system  they  fled 
from  in  Germany? 

If  we  are  to  give  up  our  political  ideals 
—  our  belief  in  Freedom,  our  conviction 
that  the  State  exists  for  the  Individual 
and  not  that  the  Individual  exists  to  be 
the  puppet  of  the  State  —  because  they 
are  "English"  —  that  is,  because  these 
principles,  although  they  did  not  originate 
in  England,  have  been  best  developed  in 
modern  times  by  Anglo-Saxons  —  then 
must  we  not  also  give  up  the  great  discov- 
eries and  inventions  of  universal  applica- 
tion which  originated  in  English  brains? 
107 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

Must  we  not  throw  over  the  law  of  gravity 
which  Newton  discovered,  and  the  steam 
engine,  the  invention  of  Watt,  and  Ste- 
phenson's railway  locomotive,  and  Fara- 
day's discoveries  which  created  the  science 
of  electricity  and  are  the  bases  on  which 
its  use  still  depends? 

Such  suggestions  are  absurd:  and 
equally  absurd  is  the  plea  that  we  aban- 
don any  great  political  principle  of  proved 
worth,  on  the  precise  ground  that  it  is  the 
specialty  of  this  or  that  people.  These  ar- 
guments are  wilfully  deceitful.  The  real 
objection  of  the  Prussian  propagandists 
to  American  Democracy  was  not  that  it 
sprang  from  English  antecedents,  not  that 
it  was,  or  has  been  since  the  Revolution, 
under  English  influence,  but  that  it  is 
Democracy.  That  was  the  cardinal  sin,  in 
Prussian  eyes,  for  the  Prussian  knew  that 
before  his  ideal  of  military  Despotism 
could  conquer  the  world,  it  must  destroy 
the  antagonistic  ideal  of  Democracy. 

The  cornerstone  of  American  Democ- 
racy, therefore,  is  the  preservation  of 
108 


PEACE 

Americanism.  In  the  interest  of  all  groups 
we  must  implacably  resist  encroachment 
by  any  one  group.  When  the  hyphenated 
Germans  demanded  that  the  German  lan- 
guage and  German  history  should  be 
taught  in  the  public  schools,  we  said  no. 
When  the  Ancient  Order  of  Hibernians 
resolves  at  its  annual  congress,  that  Irish 
history  and  glories  be  taught  in  the  public 
schools,  we  say  again  no.  When  we  hear 
that  in  one  of  the  large  cities  in  New  York 
State  thousands  of  pupils  in  the  schools 
are  taught  in  Polish,  we  know  that  every 
child  so  taught  is  being  cut  off  from  his 
first  and  natural  initiation  into  American- 
ism, that  his  future  is  in  so  far  being  prej- 
udiced, and  that  the  community  must 
suffer  when  any  of  its  constituents  re- 
mains outside. 

A  great  obstacle  to  uniform  American- 
ism has  been  the  consolidation  into  groups 
according  to  racial  origin.  The  Irish  were 
the  first  to  practise  this;  and  for  nearly  a 
century  our  political  parties  and  our  timid 
public  men  have  had  the  Irish  vote  held 
109 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

over  them  as  a  menace.  The  harmfulness 
was  increased  by  the  fact  that  Irish  Ca- 
thoKcism  was  identified  with  Irish  racial 
ambitions  here.  Latterly,  other  nationali- 
ties have  organized,  until  now  in  different 
sections  of  the  country  there  are  the  Scan- 
dinavian vote,  the  Bohemian  vote,  the 
Italian  vote,  the  German  vote,  and  a 
dozen  more  to  be  catered  to  and  caressed. 
Inevitably,  when  the  groups  of  our  foreign 
population  herd  together  after  this  fash- 
ion, two  things  happen:  the  group  thinks 
first  of  its  own  interests  and  not  of  the 
general  welfare;  and,  next,  it  cannot  resist 
the  temptation  to  misuse  American  influ- 
ence for  the  benefit  of  its  friends  abroad. 
Think  how  persistently  the  vicissitudes  of 
Ireland  have  been  a  disturbing  factor  in 
our  local  and  even  in  our  national  politics ! 
Every  year  many  candidates  seek  office, 
not  primarily  because  of  their  views  on 
American  questions,  but  because  of  their 
views  on  the  recent  Irish  sedition.  Let  us 
remember  that  every  such  perversion,  no 
matter  what  group  abets  it,  is  a  direct 
110 


PEACE 

blow  to  Americanism.  For  Americanism 
is  our  common  asset,  and  to  misappropri- 
ate it  for  a  foreign  object  is  as  bad  as  for 
one  partner  to  use  the  firm's  money  for  his 
own  profit. 

Now  a  great  many  of  the  persons  who 
are  drawn  into  these  racial  groups  do  not 
suspect  that  they  are  thereby  injuring  not 
only  the  American  ideal  but  their  own 
future  here.  If  coming  to  the  United  States 
meant  for  the  immigrants  only  that  they 
were  to  organize  in  mutually  exclusive 
groups  and  keep  their  old  customs  and 
aims,  it  would  be  far  better  for  them  to 
stay  at  home  and  suffer  still  more  from 
oppressive  governments  until  suffering 
goaded  them  into  winning  their  own  lib- 
erty from  their  oppressors. 

"Who  would  be  free,  themselves  must 
strike  the  blow."  Those  who  have  settled 
in  the  United  States  since  1865  have  en- 
tered into  a  commonwealth  which  they 
did  nothing  to  create,  but  which  it  is  their 
first  duty  —  not  to  say,  interest  —  to  pre- 
serve and  expand.  They  must  not  allow 
111 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

themselves  to  be  misled  by  striving  for 
transient,  selfish  gains,  much  less  to  be 
deceived  by  disguised  advocates  of  for- 
eign Powers  into  splitting  into  racial 
units  which  would  make  it  easy  to  under- 
mine the  Union,  and  with  it,  their  own 
best  hopes.  As  the  incomparable  Priv- 
ilege of  America  has  come  to  most  of  us 
too  easily,  we  hold  it  too  cheap.  We  must 
earn  it  for  ourselves  by  living  up  to 
American  ideals. 

The  motto — "America  First*' — should 
not  only  be  on  every  one's  lips,  but  in 
every  one's  heart,  the  rule  of  conduct 
for  every  one's  life.  That  is  the  touchstone 
which  exposes  the  cunning  of  those  who 
urge  that  the  United  States  must  be  Ger- 
manized or  Anglicized  or  Irished  or  Rus- 
sified. We  will  have  in  this  country  only 
Americans  or  foreigners  —  no  mongrels 
with  a  divided  allegiance  —  no  hyphen- 
ates, whose  hyphen,  like  the  kiss  of  Judas, 
is  a  link  for  treachery. 

If  I  have  outlined  an  ideal  obviously 
too  high  for  present  attainment,  you  must 
112 


PEACE 

remember  that  two  things  are  needed  by 
every  one  who  would  live  above  the  level 
of  the  beasts:  an  ideal  beyond  our  reach, 
and  a  deathless  resolve  to  strive  for  it. 
Unless  we  take  steps  today  —  practical 
steps,  as  the  crisis  demands  —  to  restore 
and  advance  Democracy,  the  future  will 
never  see  realized  the  ideal  we  dream  of. 
In  the  past,  the  Roman  Empire  estab- 
lished itself  by  conquest  over  a  large  part 
of  the  then  known  world  and  it  accorded 
to  its  subjects  a  little  local  liberty.  In  mod- 
ern times  the  British  Empire,  through 
conquest  and  colonization,  has  spread 
over  a  still  larger  part  of  the  globe,  and 
wherever  it  has  gone  it  has  carried  the 
ideals  of  justice  and  individual  freedom. 
The  American  Republic,  which  nature  and 
fate  seem  to  intend  for  an  imperial  devel- 
opment more  beneficial  than  that  of 
Rome  or  of  Britain,  differs  from  both  in 
that  every  stranger  who  has  come  to  our 
shores  has  come  voluntarily.  Neither  by 
conquest  nor  by  coercion  has  our  country 
been  peopled.  America  conquers  by  the 
113 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

strongest  of  all  means  —  by  love.  Neither 
terror,  nor  cruelty,  nor  craft  can  overcome 
or  outlast  love. 

All  through  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
oppressed  of  the  world  heard  yearningly 
of  this  land  beyond  the  sea,  where  a  man 
was  a  man  and  every  honest  man  was 
welcome.  Italians,  groaning  under  Aus- 
trian or  Papal  tyranny,  made  their  way 
here.  Irishmen,  mishandled  by  unjust 
English  methods,  migrated  by  the  mil- 
lions. Swedes  and  Norwegians,  chafing  at 
harsh  conditions  at  home,  sought  inde- 
pendence here.  Germans,  before  their  in- 
stinct of  freedom  was  stifled  by  the  poi- 
sonous gas  of  Prussianism,  came  hither 
to  live  free  from  military  truculence  and 
bureaucratic  presumption.  And  then  the 
refugees  from  remoter  lands  —  the  mis- 
cellaneous subjects  of  Hapsburg  and 
Romanoff  despots,  the  Balkanians,  the 
Turks,  and  the  Syrians  and  Armenians 
who  survived  their  fury.  Every  one  of 
these  came  because  he  thought  he  would 
be  better  here.  The  United  States  meant 
114 


PEACE 

for  him  hope,  opportunity,  self-respect, 
freedom,  safety,  peace. 

Immigration,  the  response  of  the  peo- 
ples of  the  earth  to  the  promise  inherent 
in  American  Democracy,  is  the  irrefutable 
proof  that  man  intuitively  craves  Liberty. 

We  cannot,  of  course,  have  real  Peace, 
so  long  as  there  exist  parties,  sociological 
or  religious,  which  place  the  success  of 
their  party  above  that  of  America.  Es- 
pecially is  this  true  of  religious  sects  and 
denominations.  The  first  Amendment  to 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  de- 
clares, that  "Congress  shall  make  no  law 
respecting  an  establishment  of  religion, 
or  prohibiting  the  free  exercise  thereof." 
One  would  suppose  that  every  sect  would 
for  its  own  welfare  understand  the  neces- 
sity of  preserving  equality;  but  unfortu- 
nately history  does  not  support  this  sup- 
position. The  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
for  instance,  has,  from  its  start  here, 
shown  an  unhealthy  tendency  to  usurp  a 
position  of  undue  importance.  Being  the 
Church  of  the  Irish,  and  the  Irish  being 
115 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

the  most  inveterate  politicians  brought  to 
us  by  any  wave  of  immigration,  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church  here  could  hardly 
fail  to  be  permeated  by  politics.  Since 
St.  Francis  and  Dante  in  the  thirteenth 
century  condemned  its  turning  to  poli- 
tics as  the  chief  curse  and  pollution  of  the 
Church,  as  a  spiritual  institution,  down  to 
our  time,  when  devout  Catholics  like  Ros- 
mini,  DoUinger,  and  Lord  Acton  inveighed 
against  the  Ultramontanes  and  the  Papal 
coveters  of  Temporal  Power,  political  am- 
bition has  been  the  temptation  and  the 
perversion  of  Roman  Catholics.  Accord- 
ingly, it  was  unfortunate  for  this  Church 
that  its  chief  instruments  in  the  United 
States  were  the  Irish,  to  whom  politics 
was  all  in  all.  Their  establishment  of  pa- 
rochial schools  was  a  direct  blow  at  Amer- 
icanism, because  any  segregation  of  school 
children  on  sectarian  lines  must  be  un- 
American.  It  cuts  them  off  from  free  inter- 
course with  other  boys  and  girls  of  differ- 
ent denominations,  and  it  teaches  them 
that  their  first  allegiance  is  to  a  foreigner. 
116 


PEACE 

The  same  would  be  true  if  the  Church 
were  Methodist,  or  Lutheran,  or  Baptist, 
or  Swedenborgian.  No  doubt  each  of  these 
sects,  and  many  others,  have  their  own 
schools  and  seminaries,  but  their  effect  is 
not  isolating  and  not  clandestinely  un- 
Americanizing  like  that  of  the  parochial 
schools.  This  obstacle  to  Peace,  therefore, 
must  also  be  removed,  and  truly  American 
Roman  Catholics,  like  the  late  venerated 
Archbishop  Ireland,  candidly  admitted  it. 
Indeed,  as  I  wished  to  imply  in  all  that 
I  have  said,  the  Peace  which  Democracy 
alone  can  bestow  on  mankind  is  that  in 
which  no  church,  no  class,  no  organiza- 
tion, strives  to  make  itself  strong  at  the 
expense  of  any  other;  in  which  the  Indi- 
vidual will  not  encroach  or  infringe  or 
usurp,  merely  because  he  has  strength  or 
the  advantage  of  position  by  which  to  do 
so.  In  other  words,  everybody  under  an 
ideal  Democracy  will  be  so  alive  to  the 
inestimable  preciousness  of  the  Whole 
that  he  will  shrink  instinctively  from  ap- 
propriating to  himself  the  smallest  jot 
117 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

which  would  subtract  from  the  complete- 
ness of  that  Whole. 

The  worldly-wise  shake  their  heads  in- 
credulously and  murmur,  "This  is  all  only 
a  dream,  iridescent,  but  unrealizable. 
Human  nature  never  changes,  and  it  can 
no  more  reach  this  than  it  can  the  end  of 
the  rainbow,  of  which  the  dream  is  spun." 
To  those  who  doubt,  I  reply,  "Woe  to 
mankind  when  the  desire  for  Liberty  shall 
vanish.  Then,  indeed,  shall  the  distinction 
between  men  and  beasts  be  blotted  out, 
and  the  hope  which  has  led  our  race  up 
from  the  beast  towards  perfection  shall 
vanish,  and  the  final  epoch  of  human 
decadence,  despair,  and  dissolution  shall 
come." 

But  I  dare  predict  that  men  will  forever 
be  led  upwards  by  their  noblest  dreams. 
Only  when  men  cease  to  dream  will  they 
cease  to  rise. 

Though  you  may  be  skeptical  of  the 

existence  of  purpose  in  human  evolution, 

yet  you  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  by  the  fact 

that  Destiny  reserved  this  part  of  the 

118 


PEACE 

American  continent  to  be  the  refuge  of 
many  races  who  were  irreconcilable  ene- 
mies at  home,  and  that  the  pioneer  race 
which  set  up  the  standard  here  to  which 
all  could  rally,  upheld  Individual  Liberty. 
From  that,  highest  practice  and  equality 
spring;  without  that,  there  can  be  no  De- 
mocracy. Do  you  think  that  if  the  Hohen- 
zoUern  standard  of  Absolutism,  with  the 
abasement  and  corruption  of  the  Individ- 
ual, had  prevailed  here,  that  the  outcast 
and  oppressed  and  heartsick  and  abused 
of  all  nations  would  have  migrated  to 
these  shores.''  Have  they  ever  willingly 
migrated  to  Prussia  or  Germany.'*  Had 
any  other  nation  settled  our  Atlantic  sea- 
board and  established  a  government  with 
other  ideals,  we  may  be  very  sure  that 
there  would  be  nothing  equivalent  to  our 
Republic.  Foreigners  by  the  million  have 
never  sought  a  home  under  the  Spanish 
or  the  Prussian  flag,  or  even  under  the 
French. 

Some  persons  do  not  really  desire  Peace 
as  a  permanent  condition.  They  think 
119 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

that  it  softens  and  deteriorates  a  people, 
but  the  magnificent  response  of  our  Amer- 
ican youth  to  the  call  of  this  War,  and 
their  conduct  in  it,  should  silence  those 
who  declare  periodic  wars  necessary  to 
keep  a  nation  strong,  courageous,  and 
alert.  Surely,  Peace  has  equally  searching 
tests  for  these  qualities.  The  great  strug- 
gles in  Peace  will  be  intellectual  and 
moral,  but  not  less  tense  than  the  physical 
struggles  of  war.  Think  of  the  immemorial 
evils  that  still  await  their  conqueror! 
Poverty,  crime,  social  vice,  class  injustice, 
disease  —  when  the  imagination  shall  per- 
ceive the  tremendous  labor  that  will  be 
required  to  abolish  any  of  these,  the  men 
and  women  who  devote  themselves  to 
such  a  task  will  be  rightly  held  in  equal 
honor  with  the  heroes  of  war.  On  what 
battle-field,  ancient  or  modern,  has  any 
hero  displayed  greater  valor  than  that 
displayed  a  few  years  ago  by  Dr.  Richard 
P.  Strong,  when  he  went,  accompanied  by 
only  one  assistant,  into  Manchuria,  where 
the  pneumonic  plague  destroyed  every 
120 


PEACE 

human  being  whom  it  attacked.  He  stayed 
there  unperturbed,  studied  the  disease 
calmly,  and  discovered  its  cause  and  how 
to  prevent  it.  By  his  courage,  he  may  have 
saved  more  lives  than  Hindenburg  has 
destroyed.  And  not  in  medicine  only,  but 
in  many  other  walks  in  life  does  Peace 
afford  opportunity  for  the  highest  spirit. 
Never  fear !  Men  do  not  need  to  blow  their 
fellows  to  atoms  every  fifteen  or  twenty 
years,  in  order  to  safeguard  the  vigor  of 
the  race. 

Through  that  brief  space  of  Time  which 
history  records.  Fate  has  watched,  as  in 
a  review,  the  procession  of  empires  and 
kingdoms,  of  princedoms  and  states.  In 
the  vast  Despotisms  of  antiquity  — 
China,  Egypt,  Assyria,  Persia  —  the  In- 
dividual is  lost.  In  the  Greek  Republics 
the  Individual  grows  rank,  hysterical,  un- 
able to  work  with  his  fellows;  and  each 
little  State  feels  towards  its  neighbors 
such  jealousy,  hate,  and  fear  that  they 
are  all  consumed  by  their  mutual,  fiery 
121 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

rivalry.  Fate  looks  long  at  Rome  which 
marches  with  an  Imperial  tread  unknown 
till  then  —  an  Empire  under  which  all 
tribes  might  prosper  if  they  bowed  to  her 
primacy;  but  by  and  by  the  Reviewer  sees 
the  insufficiency,  gives  the  signal  Enough, 
and  Rome  falls  in  the  dust.  Lovingly  and 
long  Fate  gazes  at  Venice,  so  nearly  per- 
fect in  so  many  ways,  but  too  special,  to 
meet  the  needs  of  an  expanding  world. 
Then  Saracen,  Ottoman,  and  Muscovite 
wheel  slowly  by,  and  the  medieval  Ger- 
man's political  ideals,  gargoyled  like  his 
buildings;  but  Fate  sees  their  insufficiency 
and  quenches  them  one  by  one. 

At  last,  behold  a  new  dawn,  and  the 
vanguard  of  the  American  Republic  rises 
above  the  horizon.  Here  is  the  promise  for 
which  the  ages  have  waited;  here  the  cul- 
mination which  Fate  has  slowly  prepared. 
The  ample  land,  the  foundations  of  Indi- 
vidual Liberty,  the  voluntary  assembling 
of  peoples  of  every  tongue  and  tribe,  the 
desire  to  dwell  together  in  union  and 
equality,  all  filled  by  the  same  ideals  and 
122 


PEACE 

seeking  the  same  goal  —  for  the  first  time 
in  history  Man  and  Opportunity  meet. 

The  Past  is  Fate,  and  Fate  has  done 
this  for  us.  But  on  our  own  wills  depends 
the  outcome:  for  we  too  are  Fate,  and 
through  our  choice,  as  through  the  elec- 
tric wires  which  supply  invisible  power  to 
the  loom,  the  web  of  the  future  is  being 
woven.  Are  we  choosing  up  or  down.f* 

The  career  of  mankind  is  a  progressive 
escape  out  of  the  material,  out  of  the 
animal,  out  of  the  mechanical  stages  into 
the  moral  and  intellectual  and  spiritual. 
Has  it  not  been  proved  since  the  time 
of  Cheops,  and  long  before  him,  that  it  is 
comparatively  easy  to  organize  a  nation 
at  the  level  of  machines.'*  The  animal,  too, 
is  always  breaking  out  and  reverting  to 
his  primal  ways.  Democracy,  the  state  in 
which  each  individual  has  rights,  and  free 
scope  to  develop  to  his  maximum,  and  the 
maximum  of  each  shall  be  for  the  benefit 
of  all,  has  still  to  be  tried.  Despotism  and 
half  Despotism  of  all  kinds  inevitably  plot 
to  destroy  it.  On  our  action  it  depends 
123 


DEMOCRACY:  DISCIPLINE:  PEACE 

whether  the  next  age  shall  be  Despotic  or 
Democratic. 

Let  us  set  up  and  preserve  a  standard 
to  which  all  good  men  may  repair! 


THE  END 


dbc  Biter jJitie  J^reitfji 

CAMBRIDGB  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S   .  A 


University  of  California 

SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 

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